Читать книгу Cowboy's Texas Rescue - Beth Cornelison - Страница 8

Jake Connelly crept down the corridor of the underground bunker, his senses on full alert and his Colt M4A1 assault rifle at the ready. When his black ops team reached the reinforced steel door at the end of the dim passageway, they moved silently into position—or as silently as they could while wearing CBRN suits. The military issue, head-to-toe protective clothing, designed to protect a soldier from chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear contamination, was cumbersome but critical for this op.

His team leader signaled for the men up front to work their magic and get them past the relatively low-tech security on the door. Or low-tech for a U.S. black ops team. Not so low-tech for a developing nation, even if that nation’s government had the means to kidnap a nuclear scientist and consign him to work in this hidden bunker developing a dirty bomb.

With the door breached, the team leader led the charge into the underground lab, barking in Farsi, “Everyone down! On the floor!”

“Now!” Jake shouted when the lab workers hesitated. “Hands on your head!”

One of the protective suit–clad workers tried to run, and one of Jake’s teammates stepped from the corridor to block the man’s escape. Jake tackled the fleeing worker, landing with a knee-jolting crash on the floor.

The team leader aimed his assault rifle at another man’s head. “On the floor!”

Jake quickly frisked the worker beneath him for weapons and, finding none, jerked the man to his feet. He bound the man’s hands behind him and led the lab tech into the corridor with a rifle muzzle between the man’s shoulder blades.

“Clear the room! Let’s get ’em to the helo.” The team leader whipped out a riot cuff and bound the wrists of the lab worker he had pinned to the floor. “All right, guys, set the fireworks.”

“Move!” Jake shouted in Farsi when his captive resisted. Grabbing the man’s arm, he ran, hauling the combative lab tech behind him. The rest of the team was on Jake’s heels as he sprinted back down the tunnel they’d just cleared of guards and out into the predawn darkness.

Their driver was waiting in an armored SUV, and the team piled into the vehicle, shoving their captives in first, then crowding onto the bench seats, even as their driver hit the gas. They tore away from the nondescript brick building that hid the entrance to the underground bunker, leaving the last two team members to follow in a second vehicle once the C4 and detonators were set.

Their SUV sped through the night-darkened desert the short distance to the helicopter that would get them all out of Dodge. Jake’s copilot, Bruster, had the helo’s turbines whirring, the rotor blade spinning. The bird was ready to take off.

The doors of the SUV popped open as their driver skidded to a stop, and the team disgorged from the vehicle, shoving the captive laboratory workers toward the helicopter.

“All yours, cowboy!” the team leader called to Jake as Jake handed off his prisoner and climbed in the pilot’s seat. “I want us in the air the second the rest of the team gets here.”

“Roger that,” Jake replied, tugging off the hood and breathing mask of his CBRN suit and checking the helo’s controls. When everything was set, he peered through the windshield, searching the night for his teammates’ vehicle. Under his breath he muttered, “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon. Hurry, guys.”

“Connelly,” Bruster shouted over the noise of the turbine, “HQ radioed earlier for you. You had an emergency call from the States. You’re supposed to report in as soon as we get back to base.”

A chill nipped the back of Jake’s neck as he remembered a different emergency call his family received years before. He frowned as he fastened his seat belt. “What kind of emergency?”

Bruster shrugged one shoulder. “Don’t know. Just delivering the message.”

Jake jerked a nod and scanned the terrain again for their teammates, but his thoughts dwelled on the worrisome message. An emergency call from the States? That didn’t bode well.

“There they are!” the team leader shouted, yanking Jake back to the danger at hand. “Let’s go!”

Jake’s teammates appeared like specters crossing the barren landscape, and Jake had the helo in the air even before the other agents finished clambering aboard.

“Twelve seconds!” the explosives specialist barked, and the team assumed brace positions while Jake and Bruster goosed the helo to move faster, climb higher, get out of range. Now.

Jake swung the bird in a wide arc, gaining as much altitude and latitude as quickly as he could.

“Five seconds,” his teammate called.

Jake took over the countdown in his head.

Four. Three. Two.

He gripped the cyclic tighter. Braced.

One.

Below them, a flash of explosives rocked the tiny building above the bunker. A fraction of a second later, the shock wave hit the helicopter, and Jake steadied the bird as it shuddered and pitched.

Bruster whooped. “How’s that for a kick in the ass?”

“Nice flying, cowboy,” the team leader shouted from behind Jake. “Now let’s go home.”

“Roger that, chief.”

Two hours later, once the nuclear scientist had been secured at the black ops team’s Mideast base and the other lab workers had been detained for debriefing, Jake marched into the communications center. He’d changed out of the CBRN suit into jeans, a T-shirt and his trademark cowboy hat. Scanning the room, he found the officer in charge. “I was told I had an emergency call from the States. What’s up?”

The chief of communications nodded and directed Jake toward a phone near the center of the room. “Your sister called. She’s standing by at the Dallas office to talk to you. Let me patch you through.”

Jake’s heart drummed an anxious rhythm as his call was connected via satellite to a secure line in the States. Moments later, he heard his older sister come on the line, her voice rife with emotion. “Thank God they reached you, Jake. I wasn’t sure they’d find you in time.”

The mission group’s bus was attacked by a militant gang, a long-ago voice echoed in his memory.

Jake squeezed the phone receiver and furrowed his brow. “What’s wrong, Michelle? They told me there was an emergency.”

“There is. It’s Dad.”

Jake’s stomach dropped to his toes, and he held his breath. Not even the shock wave from the bunker explosion had shaken him this hard. “Tell me.”

“He’s had a massive heart attack, Jake. He’s in intensive care at Northwest Texas Hospital in Amarillo and…” She sighed heavily.

Jake swallowed hard. “Will he make it?”

“It’s touch and go. The doctors think…” Michelle paused, clearly struggling to speak. “Jake, you need to come home.”