Читать книгу Tactical Rescue - Maggie K. Black - Страница 12

THREE

The hollow sound of the door slamming echoed in Rebecca’s ears. The van was picking up speed. The burly bearded thug who’d manhandled her into the vehicle pressed a gun to her temple. But it was the huge hand holding tight to her throat that filled her with such blinding pain that for a moment she couldn’t begin to find a way to fight back. He shoved her down into the cold empty back of the moving van and pinned her to the floor.

Help me, Lord. I need to escape this van before it gets to wherever they’re taking me.

She looked around. Inside the vehicle she could see two guns, two kidnappers, but nothing within her reach that she could grab as a weapon. Outside the vehicle was the muscular bulk and courage of the one guy she would’ve trusted with her life. Would he rescue her now?

She looked up at the man now holding her down. There was a crude, vaguely Eastern European tattoo on his neck, of two red-and-black eagles that almost seemed to be crawling out from under his shirt, and the word Ivan.

He yelled something to the driver, but it wasn’t in English. Then the van lurched forward. “Ivan” let go of her body but kept his weapon aimed at her face.

“You down! No move!” The order came from the driver. The same bird-of-prey tattoo was on his arm, this one with Dmitry.

Were those their first names? A family name? Or some other distinction?

Dmitry was trying to drive forward with one hand and shoot backward out the window at Zack with the other. He shouted something at Ivan in a language Rebecca couldn’t understand.

Ivan shouted back in heavily accented English. “She’s down! She’s not going to move!”

Oh, how little those men knew her.

The sound of a bullet cracked the air outside the van. Zack was returning fire. Then the back window shattered in a spray of class. She sprung to her hands and feet in a racing stance, prayer crossing her mind even as glass rained down around them. Ivan swore. The van swerved. Rebecca glanced back through the open gap in the shattered glass and saw Zack running after her, gun in hand.

His body strong. His face fierce.

I still don’t know what’s going on. But, old sparring partner, I’m glad you’ve got my back.

Zack was getting smaller and smaller in the distance, though, as the van kept driving. Ivan fired through the broken window, the explosion filling the metal vehicle like an echo chamber. Dmitry turned back and screamed at Ivan. But it was all the distraction she needed.

Rebecca leaped to her feet and charged. She grabbed the driver from behind and pressed her fingers into his eyes. Dmitry swore. The van spun wildly. Forcing the van to crash would be dangerous. But the van still hadn’t picked up that much speed, and something told her she was far safer in a collision with Zack running to her rescue than she would be going wherever these men were taking her. Ivan grabbed her hair. Dmitry stomped on the breaks. The van slammed to a stop, throwing Rebecca against the seat and tossing Ivan across the floor. Rebecca recovered first. She ran for the van’s back door, her feet crunching on broken glass. She could hear her abductors shouting behind her. She grabbed the door handle. The door flew open, wrenching the handle from her hand.

It was Zack. She nearly fell out of the van into his arms. Zack’s free hand grabbed her waist, just long enough to help her onto the ground. But then, before letting go, he whispered in her ear, “I need you to trust me and do whatever I say, without question.”

“What?”

But Zack stepped back. His head tilted in her direction. “You! Get down! Now!”

Zack was shouting at her. Not at the men who’d just abducted her. She hesitated. Her feet weren’t two steps away from the kidnappers’ van. Thick, endless forest spread out around her on every side. And Zack just expected her to drop to the ground instead of running?

Dmitry climbed out the driver’s-side door. Ivan stumbled across the back of the van toward them. Zack’s eyes cut sideways at Rebecca.

“Do it!” Zack said. “Trust me! Just get down.”

Her head shook. “But—”

Ivan’s bulk filled the van’s back door. With one large, steady hand he aimed his gun at Zack’s face and barked something in a foreign language. Zack didn’t move a muscle. Dmitry walked around the side of the van, slowly.

“She’s coming with us.” Dmitry trained his gun on Zack’s face.

Zack paused a long moment, without moving or speaking, as if he didn’t even see the guns or the men behind them. Then Zack shrugged and shook his head.

“She? You mean, this one?” Zack pointed one finger at Rebecca, shook his head and tapped his chest in a slow, exaggerated motion. “No, no. She’s coming with me.”

Ivan laughed. It was an ugly sound bordering on a snarl. His finger hovered on the trigger. “No, I kill you. She comes with me.”

Rebecca stood, with broken glass under her boots and legs tensed to spring. Zack was so calm and so in control, it was as if he was haggling over the price of meat instead of fighting for her life. Something within her tugged at the corner of her heart, reminding her of the sweet, sensitive man who she’d once trusted enough to spar with. She’d trusted Zack with her life back then. He was the first man she’d ever really trusted.

But how could she trust him now?

He’d kept secrets from her. He hadn’t told her who he was. Her life was in danger and he was being so casual about it, he was almost cold. Zack hadn’t just transformed his body to look like the jocks who’d once made them both feel worthless. Now he sounded just like them, too.

Zack shrugged again, rolling his shoulders up and down in a slow rise and fall that seemed to accentuate every curve of his muscular chest.

“This one, she’s a bit difficult. Clumsy, you know, and a chatterbox.” He made a mouth with his fingers and flapped it up and down in the same dismissive “talking” gesture Seth had once used to hurt and belittle her. “But I promised my boss I’d take her somewhere. You understand how this works. You have a job to do. I have a job to do. Maybe we can figure something out. How much is your boss paying you for her?”

The question hung in the air. Ivan and Dmitry glanced at each other. Neither answered. And now, Rebecca was too angry to even let the fear she was feeling even take hold. Zack didn’t look at her. One of Zack’s hands still held the gun firmly in its grip. The other was just inches away from it. She used to feel so safe in his arms. She didn’t doubt either the speed or aim he’d be able to pull the trigger with. But now, standing next to him, she felt anything but safe. She felt like that awkward, clumsy female in the martial arts class nobody wanted to get stuck with.

No, worse than that. She felt like a worthless scrap of meat in a dogfight.

“Ivan, is it?” Zack nodded to the man’s tattoo on the man’s neck. His voice rose. “You don’t want to take this woman. She’s a bad assignment. Cut your losses and move on. It’s not worth the trouble.”

Ivan snapped something at Dmitry. Dmitry shouted back. In an instant, both men were arguing so loudly they were almost bellowing.

Zack tilted his head and leaned toward Rebecca. “Trust me, okay? Do whatever I say to do. Without question.”

“No bribe!” Ivan shouted in English. “No money. No deal. No bribe. We’re taking her now.” He pointed one finger at Rebecca. “You. Girlie. Hands up. Come here, now.”

She nearly laughed. Did these men not see the gun Zack had trained at their heads? True, it was two guns against one, but it was not as if Zack was about to let them drive off with her.

“Okay, okay.” Zack lowered his gun and forced an artificial chuckle from this throat.

What? she nearly screamed inside her own head.

Ivan’s snarl turned into a smirk. “You’re just going to give us the girl?”

Zack shrugged. “What can I say? Like I said, she is clumsy. She will take two steps, trip over her own feet and fall down.”

Ivan snapped something to Dmitry.

“No, no, don’t shoot me, Dmitry!” Zack raised his hands. “You shoot me. I shoot you. Ivan here gets the girl and the money.”

There was a long pause. Wind brushed the trees. Ivan shifted his feet. Zack stood firm on the pavement.

Zack turned to Rebecca. “Go around to the passenger’s-side door. I’ll stay here with this man and we’ll work things out.”

Her head shook. Tears were forming in her eyes. “If I get into their van, they’ll kill me.”

Firm gray eyes cut at Rebecca. “Passenger side. Go.”

* * *

Zack could feel his heart beating in his chest, slow and steady.

He could sense Rebecca beside him without even looking her way. He knew how she was standing and how her limbs were moving. He knew exactly how much space was between their two bodies. He could feel the fear rolling off her shoulders like waves. He could hear the ragged, desperate sound of her breathing and wished there was a way he could still it.

Trust me, Becs. Please. I know what I’m doing. I know who these men are, how they think and how to keep you safe. Just walk around to the passenger side of the van, take two steps and hit the ground.

What were two members of Black Talon, a violent Eastern European crime syndicate, even doing in Canada? There’d been rumors recently of an internal power struggle within Black Talon. Members killing other members for control of the syndicate. What was more worrying was that both Canadian intelligence and weapons kept turning up in the hands of one faction. His special ops unit had recently been tasked with trying to determine, without any real leads, where the leak was coming from. It was possible these two men were former members who’d gotten ahold of forged immigration documents from the same source, come to North America and turned mercenaries for hire. But the hackles on the back of his neck, and the way they’d responded to his questions about their boss, made him suspect they were the real deal.

Did they suspect he was Canadian military? He’d tried to throw them off by calling them “Dmitry” and “Ivan” as if he thought the tattoos were the men’s real names, as opposed to the names of their first confirmed kills.

All Zack was waiting for now was for Rebecca to get herself out of harm’s way. Then he could rush Ivan and safely disarm him. After that he’d take out Dmitry.

But Rebecca wasn’t moving. Had she not understood his signal? Did his directions confuse her? True, they hadn’t seen each other in years. But they used to be so tight it was as though they could read each other’s thoughts. The soldier in Zack told him that when the hostage one was rescuing became a liability, it was important to focus on the key mission objective above all else.

Yet something in his heart was stopping him from thinking of Rebecca as a mere “hostage” or “objective.” Rebecca was different. Somehow. Keeping her safe mattered to him. But he didn’t have time to stand around asking himself how or why. If she didn’t move soon, he’d have no choice but to treat her like any other uncooperative hostage he was trying to rescue, which was something he really didn’t want to have to do.

Aw, come on, Rebecca! Until you move I won’t be able to get us out of this!

Zack tilted his head toward Rebecca but kept his eyes trained on the gunmen.

“Hurry up,” he hissed.

Ivan raised an eyebrow.

Lord, he prayed, help her understand. I can’t keep stalling these men forever.

“Look, please, don’t make this any harder than it needs to be,” Zack said, sharply. “You think I don’t remember how clumsy you were? Like I said, you’d take two steps onto the martial arts mats, trip and you would wipe out on your face. Just go around to the side of the van and get out of my way. Now! You don’t want them to tie you up or drag you off kicking and screaming, now do ya?”

Rebecca spun on her heels—

Thank You, God!

She sprinted hard into the woods.

No!

Ivan swore and fired after her. Dmitry charged into the trees.

No. No. No. No. No.

This is exactly the kind of situation Zack had wanted to avoid! Rebecca was now running off wildly with no direction or focus with an experienced killer on her heels, putting her own life in even worse danger. Why hadn’t she just listened?

Ivan’s weapon swung toward Zack. But Zack wasn’t about to let him get off another shot. Zack charged, head down, his full strength barreling into the thug like a freight train. Ivan’s body smacked against the pavement. The gun flew from his hand.

Zack stood over him and grabbed him by the shirt collar. “Why is the Black Talon in Canada? How did you get into the country? Who’s been supplying you with Canadian weapons? What do you want with Rebecca Miles?”

“No English.” The criminal spat in his face.

A gun blast sounded from the trees to his left.

Rebecca.

Dmitry was still hunting her.

Zack’s jaw clenched. If he let Ivan get away he might never get an answer. But if he didn’t, Rebecca might die. He leveled one decisive blow at the side Ivan’s head, hard enough to keep him from following. Then Zack grabbed the man’s gun and charged into the woods. His feet pelted quickly through the trees. His ears strained for noise to guide him.

Zack had always been a tracker. Before he’d been a soldier he’d hunted game, both large and small, in the Canadian woods. As a bodyguard one summer, he’d found and returned the runaway rich kid he’d been hired to protect. But while his body moved almost silently, his heart pounded so loudly in his ears, it threatened to block out the world around him. Rebecca hadn’t taken him seriously. She hadn’t respected him. She hadn’t seen the man he’d become. A man finally worthy of being respected and cared for by a woman like her. She must still think of him as the emotionally and physically weak boy he used to be. And now her life was in danger because of it.

Another gun blast.

Then Dmitry’s voice, loud and angry. “Come out now!”

Zack crept toward the sound. He could see Dmitry between the trees. The criminal was standing in a clearing. But where was Rebecca? Dmitry swung his weapon around in a circle and fired wildly into the underbrush. Bullets tore through the trees.

“You! Out! Now!” Dmitry’s gun spun wildly from one direction to another. “Or I’ll hurt you!”

Zack held in his breath as bullets flew past him, exploding in the underbrush. Dmitry reached to reload.

Rebecca leaped from the trees.