do something else to her, possibly rape her. She couldn’t fight back. She felt and heard him laugh, the sound harsh against her ears, his breath fetid, nauseating her.
Everything spun and when he pushed her to stand on her own two feet, she started to collapse again. Someone behind her grabbed her around the waist, held her upright and walked her over to the nervous horse. They threw her into the saddle. It was the last thing Aly remembered.
The brutal death of Juan, being captured, slapped and roughly treated, overwhelmed her. Aly had never experienced violence in her life. But now, her last thoughts acknowledged she was in a violent world and there was no escape.
* * *
Staff Sergeant Josh Patterson was in a lot of trouble. He’d been taken off an important op in Afghanistan and ordered to Washington, D.C. For what? What the hell was more important than targeting an HVT? As a Marine Force Recon, he’d worked three weeks on that op, watching through his sniper scope as the Pakistanis crossed across the border into Afghanistan carrying weapons, fertilizer to make IEDs and bombs. A top man, a war lord, had been scheduled to come across. CIA traffic had picked up a lot of chatter so Patterson knew their HVT—high value target—would be crossing any day now.
Yet he was now taking the broad stone steps up to the Pentagon with orders to see a General Landon. The name didn’t ring a bell, but being an enlisted man, Patterson had nothing to do with officers other than to take orders and direction from them.
He pushed his fingers through his recently cut black hair. His beard was gone, as well. He was in Marine desert camos. Since he’d been flying for thirty hours, exhaustion now stalked him. As a sniper, he was used to catching catnaps where and when he could. Having grabbed an Air Force C-17 out of Rota, Spain, he’d opened up his hammock, strung it between two containers on the deck and slept until they’d landed at Andrews Air Force Base.
He hadn’t been to the Pentagon often, but located the visitor’s desk and found out where he was supposed to be. There were seven rings to this building; even to a Recon, the layout was impressive. Finding General Landon’s office, he opened the door and stepped inside. A woman dressed in civilian clothes, in her fifties, smiled.
“Sergeant Patterson?”
He nodded, taking off his utility cap. “Yes, ma’am. Reporting as ordered.”
“Have a seat, Sergeant. I’ll ring the general.”
Patterson sat, sensing tension around the woman. Her smile was fixed. Her eyes showed anxiety. Snipers saw the details. Missing one could get him killed. He’d downed five cups of McDonald’s coffee this morning on the way over. God, it had tasted good. It was one of the few things he’d missed about rich U.S. life.
He heard a buzzer.
“Go right in, Sergeant. General Landon will see you now.”
Patterson opened the door into the large room and saw a man in a dark green wool uniform behind a desk, a deadly look on his face. The general had short black hair with some silver at the temples, dark blue eyes and a bulldog-square face. He was about the sergeant’s height of six feet tall and around his weight, two hundred pounds.
Patterson shut the door, snapped to attention and gave his name and rank.
“At ease, Sergeant,” Harrison said, pointing to the seat in front of the desk. “Sit down.”
Patterson nodded and did so.
“This is a black op, Sergeant,” the general said. Picking up a folder, he pushed it across his spotlessly polished walnut desk.
Knowing Recons sometimes performed black ops, Patterson reached for the file. “Yes, sir.”
“Open it, Sergeant.”
The sergeant did so.
He frowned and did a double take. It was a color photo of a young woman. There was a sprinkling of freckles across her high cheekbones and she had soft blue eyes. Her face was oval-shaped, her eyes wide-spaced. She had mussed ginger-colored hair around her face and lying on her shoulders. She was smiling. And she was happy.
Josh looked up at the general, waiting to be briefed. Under ordinary circumstances, he would find this woman very attractive. She was a natural, wearing no makeup, no lipstick or blush. He instantly liked that about her. She wore a bright red tee that showed off the glint of gold, red and burgundy in the strands of her hair. He didn’t try to guess anything about her. He was sure this scowling general would tell him, so he waited, his hand atop the file on his lap.
“That’s my daughter, Sergeant. Her name is Allison Landon. She’s twenty-seven years old and is in trouble so deep I don’t even know if you can help her.”
Eyes narrowing on the officer, Josh felt the air whoosh out of his lungs. This was his daughter? For the first time he saw the general’s game face crack, momentary terror in his expression. And something else he couldn’t read. “Yes, sir.”
“My daughter is a registered nurse, Sergeant. She works for Healing Hands Charity. It’s a global charity. Presently she’s down in Brazil, in drug-lord badlands.” His mouth thinned and he snarled. “I told her it was dangerous. But she didn’t listen.”
The powerful emotion slapped at Josh. It was invisible. But it was real. He wasn’t sure Allison’s father was more angry than worried. “Sir? Do you want my questions? My input? Or do you want me to sit and listen?”
“Sit and listen, Sergeant. When I’m done briefing you, then you can ask questions.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rubbing his jaw, Landon said, “She’s worked down there for two years. About thirty miles southeast of Manaus, an old rubber town that sits on the Amazon River. Two nights ago Aly—Allison, was supposed to make a prearranged sat call to her supervisor in Manaus. It’s a safety check-in. She was supposed to have arrived at a particular Indian village. But the super never heard from her. Sometimes, sat phones go out. Especially in that kind of heavy humidity, so the super didn’t think much of it. When she didn’t get Allison’s check-in call the second evening, she called the U.S. ambassador’s office in São Paulo, Brazil. That is standard operating procedure. She’s declared Allison missing and unaccounted for.”
Josh could see sweat making the general’s deeply furrowed brow gleam.
“She’s missing,” Landon growled, his hand on the desk flexing slowly into a fist. “There’s a regional drug lord in that area. Duarte is his name. He’s active and his drug soldiers kill and ask questions later. I need you to find her. I’ve cut your orders. You’ll perform a HAHO, high-altitude, high-opening parachute drop, into the area she was last known to be. We can’t use satellites because the area is old-growth, triple-canopy jungle. Once on the ground, you will find her through whatever means at your disposal. You’ll be given a sat phone and anything else you need. If I could send a company of Marines into that friggin’ place, I’d do it, but it’s not possible. I strongly believe Duarte has her. Now, questions?”
Josh sat forward. “Sir, is this a kidnap and ransom?”
“No,” Harrison muttered. “There’s not been one phone call to me requesting money.”
“Why would Duarte grab her?”
The man’s
