Chapter Eighteen
“This is the excuse we’ve been looking for gentlemen. We’re going to detour around Cozumel and head for Houston.” Brock understood why Cam was anxious to skip the party stop, but he wasn’t entirely convinced this storm was a blessing.
“How far are we offshore?” Security at the popular port would have been a nightmare, and Brock was as anxious as anyone to get Mia to the safety of the Prairie Winds compound, but as a former SEAL, he also knew the value of executing an insertion during a storm. He didn’t want to be a target as they skirted bad weather.
“Only a couple of miles, but we’re angling a little closer to try to get ahead of the worst of the storm,” Cam answered absently while studying a chart on his laptop.
“How is your surveillance equipment working?” Brock already knew the answer but wanted to make sure Cam was paying attention to the fact they wouldn’t see an approaching boat until it was too fucking close.
Micah Drake was sitting nearby, typing furiously on a keyboard.
“We’ve already positioned people on the deck, but it’s probably wasted effort since they can’t see a damned thing. At this point, the storm is a bigger threat than someone coming aboard. Kyle is working to find out if there are any teams nearby Uncle Sam might be planning to send out to retrieve Mia.”
“As soon as the Wests knew what we were facing, they ordered the rest of the team in Medellin to pull Tyson out.” Cam was obviously playing offense rather than defense, and Brock breathed a sigh of relief. Anyone directing a team to pull Mia in was going to be too busy covering their own ass to focus on her—he hoped.
*
Karl Tyson heard shouting in the hall outside the suite he’d been locked in for what felt weeks, but with no access to anything remotely connected to the outside world, he had no way of knowing for sure how long it had been. When the shouts grew louder, he became concerned and wondered what the problem was.
The men charged with watching over him had been even more agitated than usual the past few days, and it seemed they’d redoubled their efforts to convince him the organization they worked for was a legitimate pharmaceutical company wanting nothing more than an equal opportunity in the open market of the United States.
Shaking his head, Karl tried to remember why that seemed wrong and why they insisted on telling him the same thing again and again. Anytime he tried to remember what his life had been like before this room, his head felt like it was going to explode. Pressing his fingers over his temples to ease the pain, Karl heard gunfire and quickly moved to the back of the large walk-in closet to hide. Without a weapon, he wouldn’t stand a chance in a hand-to-hand battle. He’d been exercising whenever they left him alone for a few minutes, but he was still too weak to fight off anyone intent on hurting him.
Settling in the darkest corner of the closet, he heard the unmistakable sound of wood splintering, then shouts as the fight spilled into the suite. Karl sucked in a breath when he realized the voices were speaking English, and they didn’t have the accent he’d grown accustomed to hearing whenever his captors tried to communicate with him in his native language. No—these were Americans, and Karl felt a surge of hope for the first time in so long, he was afraid to give it more than a passing thought.
There was a part of him that remembered all the prayers that had gone unanswered—all the dark nights he’d lay awake trying desperately to hold on to memories that now seemed beyond his grasp. He still didn’t understand how he could remember wanting to hold on to the fragments of his mind while being unable to remember what those bits and pieces of his memory contained.
His days were filled with torment as he tried to sort through the jumbled images playing in his dreams and dancing just far enough out of his reach to steal his focus during the few hours each day he was awake enough to think at all. Where did all those lost hours go each day? What was he doing or what was being done to him? Harboring any hope he’d ever find his way back to his previous life seemed like little more than an exercise in frustration, and attempting to put it together in his mind resulted in headaches so severe, he often succumbed to the overwhelming nausea.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been wandering around lost in his own thoughts when the sound of heavy footsteps moving closer brought him back to the moment. Whoever was out there wasn’t making any effort to hide their approach. A few seconds later, the closet door opened, and Karl found himself blinking at the bright light shining in his eyes.
“Senator Tyson, we’re here to take you home.” Sagging with relief, he wanted to weep.
He might not remember his previous life, but at this point, he had nothing to lose by putting himself in the stranger’s care. Karl let the man help him to his feet.
“My name’s Sam McCall. Come on, let’s get the hell out of here before the locals show up and drop a net over us.” Another soldier slid a pair of slippers on his feet, and they led him down a hallway that looked more like a war zone.
The men surrounding him were moving so fast, Karl was having trouble keeping up. Stepping over the bodies of several men he knew had been stationed outside his door, they moved quickly to the stairwell. The man who’d said his name was Sam must have sensed his reluctance because he turned and grasped Karl’s upper arm. Looking down, he was shocked to see Sam’s hand completely encircled his bicep.
“It’s too dangerous to use the elevator. We’ve got to take the stairs. Do you think you can make it to the roof?”
Karl wasn’t sure how close they were to the top of the building, but he was certain it couldn’t be far. He didn’t know how long he’d last running up several flights of stairs, but he was determined to try. Nodding, he preceded the man up the narrow stairway. He sagged in relief when he discovered he’d only had to sprint up four short flights before they burst through a heavy door, spilling out onto the roof.
A few yards ahead, a helicopter sat with its blades turning slowly. When Karl realized the woman sitting in the pilot’s seat wasn’t wearing a uniform like the men who surrounded him, he and drew up short. When he hesitated, Sam leaned down to shout in his ear.
“That’s my wife, Senator. She’s a hell of a pilot, and you can bet your ass she’s going to get us the hell out of Dodge.” Wife? Sam didn’t look familiar, but with his face partially covered it might be hard to tell. But the closer he got to the woman, the more he relaxed. She was smiling at them as they climbed in the back of the chopper and a series of images raced through his mind, but it was gone before he could make sense of it.
Any time he tried to piece the pictures together into a memory, it triggered violent headaches, so he silently pushed aside whatever made the young woman seem familiar. The last thing he wanted to do was begin vomiting in front of the men who’d risked their lives to rescue him.
The other men all smiled at him, offering him a helping hand, and handing him a bottle of water and a granola bar, but Sam was the only one who’d introduced himself. He was grateful he only had to remember one man’s name because he wasn’t sure he could have handled any more.
Leaning back, Karl let them fasten his seatbelt as a wave of exhaustion hit him with the strength of a tsunami. Closing his eyes, the last thing he remembered was the weightless feeling he recognized as the aircraft lifting quickly into the air.
*
Sam knew the senator hadn’t recognized him even though they’d met on several occasions—the camo paint probably hadn’t helped. Tyson was little more than a shell of his former self, and the needle tracks on his arms confirmed one of the team’s fears. He was definitely being drugged—now the question was what they had been giving him and how long did they have to relocate him to a medical facility before he went into withdrawal? Sam watched the emaciated man sitting next to him take a couple of drinks from a bottle of water, then fall instantly asleep. Hell, they hadn’t even gotten off the ground when his eyelids slid closed.
Karl Tyson had impressed the hell out of him by running up the stairs when it was obvious he was operating on nothing but pure adrenaline. The small stumble when he’d seen Jen was the only time he’d missed a step, and Sam didn’t know many men who didn’t react the same way when they laid eyes on his gorgeous wife.
Her long, pale blonde hair and crystal blue eyes were only eclipsed by her warm smile and colorful personality. Sam always cautioned people that judging Jen based on her appearance was a mistake, but they rarely listened—until they found themselves cut off at the knees by her Mensa-level intelligence and smart mouth. He and Sage had won a lot of bets doing little more than wagering how long she’d let an asshat treat her like an airhead before she lowered the boom on them.
Sam had been terrified when Jen announced she was going to learn to fly. There was a reason the team called her Miley—she was a five foot nothing wrecking ball when he and Sage weren’t keeping her contained. But she’d tackled flight instruction with a single-minded purpose that shocked everyone. She’d been completely focused on becoming a pilot, and everyone agreed she had a natural affinity for it. Watching her maneuver the craft through the complicated air traffic control patterns of the city was damned impressive.
Once they were out of the city, it wouldn’t take them long to fly to the small airstrip just outside the radar range of the Jose Maria Cordova International Airport. The team’s small jet was waiting, ready to take off the minute they were on board. As a team leader, Sam had been thrilled when the Wests agreed to purchase a smaller, more maneuverable jet. And now, each team had a jet they used, and their members were responsible for keeping the aircraft stocked with the supplies they most often needed.
His communication device crackled to life, and Jen’s sweet voice sounded in his ear.
“We’ll be setting down in ten. Our next ride is ready and waiting. The big bosses sent in a pilot, they seem to think I’m tired for some reason. You wouldn’t know where they got such a strange idea, would you?”
Damn straight, he knew. He’d sent Kyle and Kent both messages asking for a relief pilot. Jen had been on standby for days, had taken shifts watching the hotel, and only slept in three- and four-hour increments since they’d gone wheels up in Texas ten days ago. He smiled because he knew she’d directed the question to him without opening her mic to the other members of the team.
“I promise to answer that question the next time you’re naked and underneath me, doll. Now, get us to that damn jet, so we can get on our way. The sooner we deliver the good senator to the clinic, the sooner you’ll get your answer.”
He and Sage always made certain one of them had a line of sight on their sweet wife anytime she was flying. Sage was usually seated next to her since he was qualified to co-pilot all the aircraft they used. She turned briefly to look at him over her shoulder, flashing him a look filled with heat and promise. Damn, he was going to have to start pressing his bosses to overhaul the jet. This thing needs a bedroom.