Free Fall (Elite Force #4)(4)
Author: Catherine Mann

The lead CIA agent on their extraction team—a craggy-faced dude calling himself “Mr. Smith,” surprise, surprise—clicked the controller in his hands and shifted one of the smaller screen images to feed into the larger wide-screen above the rest.

“This footage was made yesterday at zero-eight-hundred when the Predator spy drone successfully deployed NAVs for an inside peek.” Smith hitched the dusty leather belt, his dark shirt and pants well-worn and generic looking as his four identical workmates. “We were lucky enough to make contact with Agent Carson.”

The screen captured her eyes narrowing briefly as she stepped closer to the minute surveillance device. She nodded, just a tiny dip of her head that she knew she was being watched and somehow she’d decided the eyes were friendly. Yet, she didn’t give anything away to the pair of scared students huddled in the corner with an unconscious third on the floor in front of them.

Mr. Smith zoomed in so close Stella’s freckles came into focus. “Once she knew we had eyes in the room, she fed us information like a pro.”

Jose leaned forward, elbows on his knees as his eyes zeroed in on his favorite freckle, the one just below her ear where he’d discovered she liked to be kissed the day they’d flown to Queen Elizabeth National Park. He could almost taste her skin even now, watching her on screen.

She walked to a corner and stared up at what appeared to be a regular surveillance camera to keep watch over prisoners. “We need medical supplies in here,” she shouted, her husky voice reaching through the airwaves to grip him right around his heart. “Do you hear me, people?”

The operative fast forwarded through her pointing out two injured students and three more devices in her dank concrete room; each step took her past piles of ancient pottery and stacks of other stolen pieces of art. “She alerted us to the location of the cameras in the room and the students throughout the building—as best she could.”

Her pacing slowed beside a stack of ancient tribal masks. “You can’t just lock all of us away.” Her fingers skimmed along a gold gilded antiquity. Drawing their attention to the room’s storehouse of stolen historic treasures? “I’m no good to you if I die before you even get to torture me for answers.”

Torture.

Rape was rampant here.

Mutilation of women was commonplace.

Bile burned the back of his throat as a hole threatened to crack open his chest. What had she been through during her three days of captivity? Jamming the fear to the back of his brain, he focused on using his training to help her. He wouldn’t be any good to her if he didn’t hold it together.

His eyes flicked to other screens, images of the rest of the rooms, one in particular. Chains hung from the ceiling. Knives glinted in a line on a nearby table. A battery with cables lay too damn close on the floor. The semiconscious man being carried between two guards appeared alive.

Jose forced himself to assess the young man medically. Pararescue training included extensive schooling as a medic and no doubt those skills were needed for this mission. The wide screen filled again with Stella’s image, the time stamp at the bottom showing the footage had come in late yesterday afternoon.

“Hello?” She waved her hand in front of one of the bad guy surveillance cameras. “Your guards are due back in a half hour anyway to bring that watery soup you call supper… Oh yeah, and you call it breakfast, but no actual lunch because we shouldn’t eat enough to have any energy. Instead of your sunrise/sunset buffet, I’d rather have a bucket of water and antibiotics.”

Mr. Smith froze that frame, leaving the smaller images running in both past and real time now, offering two Stellas to watch in addition to the full screen close-up of her pale face with keen green eyes. “Notice, she told us the guard’s schedule—or at least the part we can expect. Sunrise and sunset. We can infiltrate at that moment, when we know where the guards will be. It’s better to face the certainty. You’ll be going in just before dusk as they take her supper tonight.”

Screens flickered and shifted with feeds of everything from jungle perimeter to the rusted chain-link fence. Jose imprinted every detail in his brain. Nothing could be tossed aside as inconsequential.

“Gentlemen,” Mr. Smith continued, scratching his jaw along the beard they all grew when undercover in-country for any length of time, “I trust I don’t need to stress how important it is that this rescue goes off without major incident. With the vice president’s wife coming for a goodwill visit at the end of the week, security is crucial.”

If there weren’t civilian students involved in the kidnapping would they have left Stella there to die in the interest of preserving “security”? His fist clenched around his sobriety coin in his pocket. He was the first person in a long line of family alcoholics to make it this far in AA.

“Sergeant James.” Mr. Smith turned his attention to Jose. The frozen image of Stella fast forwarded. “Here’s the part that brought you here today.”

Stella hitched her hands on her hips, her face directed right at the nano bug. “I really could use some Jose Cuervo.”

The CIA agent clicked the remote again and again, skipping to different frames where she repeated over time… “Jose Cuervo… Jose Cuervo… Jose Cuervo…”

Cuervo. An ironic reminder of a bad encounter with a bottle of the tequila, and due to his name Jose, the call sign stuck. Jose “Cuervo” James. He forced himself to concentrate on the deceptively bland CIA operative in charge of the whole operation.

“We looked into her file and your name—or rather your call sign—caught our attention. We realized the two of you worked a mission together six months ago. Our files indicate you became more than friends.”

So much for their attempts to keep the relationship secret. Apparently big brother really was watching.

“Yes, sir,” he answered simply, catching a look from his fellow teammate out of the corner of his eye.

He’d been paired with Tech Sergeant Gavin “Bubbles” Novak, the least chatty PJ in their squadron, but the best medic. Bubbles had also been there the day Stella had pulled them out of the Gulf of Aden.

A wave from one of the techies drew their attention back. The main screen filled with Stella in “real time.” His mouth dried at the thought of seeing her now, so vibrant he ached to step into the image with her. The screen showed a door opening in Stella’s cell.