Just as the rope went slack again, the door behind them cracked with the force of an angry kick. He and Matt both dove to the darkest parts of the room along opposite walls.
As he rolled, Tristan pulled his knife from his boot. Gunfire would draw unwanted attention from neighbors, which the team on the ground didn’t need as they hustled two dehydrated, malnourished seniors down dark alleys.
The two new occupants swore loudly in Arabic as they ran into the room. They asked over and over where the old man and woman had gone, their words carrying down the hall where several more angry voices joined the fray.
Tristan caught Matt’s eye across the room and didn’t even have to signal. They knew what they were doing, knew what had to happen. Simultaneously, they each aimed for the man closest to them, quickly rendering each harmless with a blow to the neck.
His hand tingled as his Lybanian target—or “tango,” as Tristan had been trained to call them—crumpled to the ground, and he wiggled his fingers. But there wasn’t time to think about it more than that as five more men barreled into the room.
Letting his training and survival instincts take over, he spun to the left and dropped to the floor just as one of the men fired his semiautomatic into the wall. So much for avoiding gunfire. With a sweep of his leg, Tristan took the tango down at his ankles, even as his gun continued to discharge.
Caught by one of the stray bullets, another tango yelped and crashed into the wall, shaking the whole house, as though the ancient mud blocks were just waiting for an excuse to give way.
As he slumped to the floor, the tango yelled at one of the others to go kill the girl. The last to enter the room spun and ran back the way he had come.
“Be right back,” Tristan yelled at Matt, who just grunted in response.
He charged down the narrow corridor toward the stairwell, praying he wouldn’t be too late to save the last package.
* * *
Staci Hayes clutched a scrap of paper to her chest with both hands as the voices in the room below her rose to frantic cries, punctuated with the unmistakable sound of gunfire.
She sucked in a breath, fear making her shiver despite the heat that pushed her to the lowest point in the room.
Dear Lord, help Judy and Hank if that’s where the guards are headed.
Something popped beneath her feet, and she scrambled into a corner, tucking her knees under her chin and staring into the impossible darkness. Always darkness.
A voice screamed a Lybanian curse, but his words were cut off in the middle of his rage. Something banged into one of the walls, shaking the whole house once again.
In the stillness that followed, she held herself together only by a string of prayers, her eyes still searching the thick darkness for any sign. Of what, she wasn’t sure. This was clearly more than just another card game gone wrong. But what was causing such a struggle?
On shaking legs she pushed herself to stand, tucking the piece of paper beneath her collar and into the lining of her undershirt. She ran empty hands along the crumbling wall and turned the corner when she reached it. Silence still prevailed below as she reached the door, jiggling the locked handle for the hundredth time.
But this time when she pulled her hand back, it rattled again. Someone was out there.
Scurrying backward to her safe corner, she tripped on her floor-length robe and fell sprawled on her backside.
Just as she landed, the frame around the door splintered and the panel flew open. She threw her hands over her eyes, protecting them from the sudden glare of light added to her world, but not before she made out the silhouette of a man whose broad shoulders filled the empty frame.
He screamed at her in Arabic as he ran toward her corner, his words drowned out by the ringing in her ears.
And then there were two men, a second silhouette materializing behind the first. Her eyes were stinging from the light, blurring the images, but the second man pushed the first man, who crumpled to the ground.
It was a dream. It had to be. Or maybe her eyes without her contacts or glasses were playing tricks on her.
But no matter how hard she squinted, there were still two men, one on the ground and the other standing over him, looking gigantic and ominous with the backlighting casting his face in shadows. Breath catching in her throat and heart pounding painfully, she pulled her knees even closer, pressing her forehead against them and praying, not for the first time, that she had dreamed the whole ordeal.
She heard the second man cross the room and squat down at her side. “Are you Staci Hayes?” His words were so soft that she looked up to read his lips, but she couldn’t miss her name there or the American accent she had only heard once in the previous week.
She nodded, but words failed her.
His white teeth flashed, and he pointed at himself. “I’m with the United States Navy. I’m here to get you safely back to the States.” His ice-blue eyes flashed with a strength that expected to be obeyed.
She tried again to speak, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. He put his hand on her arm, gentle yet firm. “Ms. Hayes, I’m going to get you out of here, but I need you to do everything I say quickly and without question.”
“What—what about Judy and Hank?”
“They’re safe.” He looked over his shoulder at the guard he’d taken down, who still lay motionless. “Can you run?”
“Yes.” But the shaking in her knees threatened to make her a liar, and she rubbed her hands up and down her shins.
“We’ve got to rock and roll, L.T.”
She jerked at the deep voice coming from the doorway, but before she could do more than that, he was by her other side, both men tugging her to her feet.
L.T. didn’t waste time with introductions, instead asking his tall friend, “Did you take care of them?”
“Yes. But one got a call-off. Backup is on the way, I think.”
“You think?” L.T.’s eyes flashed.
“Hey, I’m not the language expert on the team.”
She’d been so wrapped up in their rapid back-and-forth that she barely noticed that they’d crossed the room and were propelling her toward the stairway.
“Stay with me and, whatever happens, don’t let go of my hand.” He held her hand up to her eyes and squeezed her fingers until she squeezed his back. “Got it?”
“Yes.” She wrapped her other hand around his wrist as the two navy men sailed down the stairs. Her skirt whipped around her ankles and she stepped on the side of it, nearly sending her tumbling into L.T.’s back. She caught herself by the grip on his arm at the last minute, and he glanced over his shoulder at her, the look in his eyes asking if she was all right. She nodded quickly, and he spun around.
By the time they reached the front door of the building, she was breathing as if she’d climbed Mount Everest, her lungs screaming for air and heart pounding hard.
L.T. paused for a moment, looking down the midnight streets. She took the chance to gulp in deep breaths, sure that they’d be gone just as fast.
Without a word, the second man slipped into the night, his gun lifted to his shoulder in rock-steady hands. Staci and L.T. followed him into the cloak of darkness.
“Hang in there,” he whispered just as a bullet burst in the sand at their feet.
Every thought vanished as her feet pounded the streets, winding between buildings and down alleys until her ragged breaths were louder than her footfalls. Sweat ran down her back and arms, but she refused to loosen her damp grip on L.T.’s hand, even as he tucked her into his side.
Another