Exit Strategy (23 page)

“Tie him to the tower,” someone yelled. Stryker?

Mason tried to focus on the men holding him down, kicking out as they dragged him backward. He kicked one of them in the jaw so hard he heard his neck crack. The man fell away into a limp heap on the ground. But another quickly took his place. The sheer force of that many men, binding and tightening the ropes, was too much.

He roared with rage as he was tied against the wooden posts of the tower.

“Good grief, he’s strong,” someone yelled. “Grab his foot. There. Tie it down.”

The grunts and curses faded beneath the buzzing in Mason’s ears. He twisted and bucked and fought the blackness settling over him, hissing at the burn of his bonds. The boards behind him seemed to be on fire too, stinging where they touched his back. The pain was so intense, bone deep, that it had him hissing and arching forward. He shook his head.

It’s not real. The rope isn’t burning. Focus. Don’t give in!

One of the ropes jerked tight, pulling his arms up over his head. He tried to kick but his legs were yanked hard behind him. Sharp pain radiated up his body, settling in the raw ridges crisscrossing his back. A thousand bees sank their stingers deep into his skin. The blackness dipped down over him again, and this time he didn’t fight it.

Mason.

Someone called to him in the darkness. There was no pain there. He liked the darkness.

Mason.

He frowned, shook his head. No. He didn’t want to wake up. It was always worse when he opened his eyes.

Mason!

His eyes flew open. He blinked against the yellow light of the cheap candle dripping wax in its holder a few feet away. He was naked, lying on his stomach in his cot. Outside the tent the wind whipped sand against the thick material. No matter how tightly the flap was zipped, the sand always worked its way in until everything was coated with it. Including him.

A face swam into his vision, kneeling down beside him, his robes brushing against the sandy floor.

The Jackal! No!

Mason tried to jump up, but the wires over his back held him to the cot, biting into his skin. Sand and grit mixed with blood, setting his open wounds on fire. The Jackal smiled like an old friend, dipped his hand into the salt water in his cup, and let the water dribble onto Mason’s skin.

A guttural scream filled the air. Shame washed over Mason when he realized that he was the one screaming. He clamped his jaw shut and bit down on his lip. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth.

“It’s been three weeks, soldier,” the Jackal said. “Twenty-­one days. No one, not even you, can hold out much longer. Tell me where your men are hiding and I’ll spare your life.”

Spare
his
life. Not
their
lives. No way.

He turned his head to the side, working his mouth.

The Jackal leaned in close to hear him.

Mason spit a stream of blood and saliva in his face.

The Jackal jumped back, cursing Mason in his native tongue and swiping at his wet face. His eyes flashed. He grabbed the cup of salt water and threw all of it onto Mason’s back.

Stinging agony burned across his nerve endings. He went rigid, biting his lip nearly in two to keep from screaming. His world went black.

He drifted in and out for a while. Every time he moved toward the surface, up toward the light, pain slammed into him, stealing his breath. He shied away from the light. Darkness became his friend. “Soldier, open your eyes. Soldier?”

Hands clapped next to his ear.

“Open your eyes, Hunt. That’s an order!”

He pried his gritty eyelids open. He was on his stomach again, but there were real walls around him. No sand. And no Jackal. His commanding officer stood over him beside a medic and others Mason didn’t recognize.

“Sir,” he slurred. “My men?”

His CO shook his head. “Sorry, son. They’re all . . . gone.”

No! Twelve men—­good men, with girlfriends, wives, sons, daughters. No!

“The Desert Jackal, sir,” he gritted out. “He killed them?”

“We believe so, but we have no proof.”

“If they’re dead, he’s the one who did it,” Mason insisted.

“Without proof, there’s nothing we can do.”

Mason steeled himself against the agony of the wounds on his back and pushed himself up on his forearms. “Sir, we need to take him out. He killed my men. I know it. We have to stop him.
Before
he kills again.”

The medic gently pushed Mason’s shoulders. “You need to lie down, sir. Your wounds are bleeding again.”

Mason shook his hands away. He had to make his CO understand. “He’s dangerous. You have to stop him.”

“I’d like nothing better than to put a bullet in his head, son. But that’s not how we operate. Without proof, there’s nothing I can do. We can’t go around killing ­people because we think they might hurt someone in the future. That’s not how it’s done.” He patted Mason’s shoulder. “I’m here to thank you for your ser­vice. On behalf of our country, thank you for the tremendous sacrifice you made to try to protect your men. It’s not your fault what happened. You survived, son. And you’ve paid your dues. You’ll be issued a Purple Heart. And if I have anything to say about it, the Medal of Honor. Relax. Let your injuries heal. You’re one of the lucky ones. You get to go home.”

“But, sir. The Jackal—­”

“Will be brought down, once we have proof of his crimes, not a moment before. Let it go, soldier. There’s nothing else you can do.”

The blackness shifted again. Another dark room, this one in a hospital back in the States. A man in a suit in the corner, a newspaper in his hands.

This time, Mason was lying on his back. The pain was a dull ache now. “Who are you?”

The man stood, adjusted his suit, and approached the hospital bed. “I’m your new best friend.” He plopped the newspaper on Mason’s lap.

Mason lifted it, his jaw clenching in fury as he skimmed the front page.

Over two hundred troops feared dead at the hands of suicide bomber at U.S. Embassy. Bomber was known in the region as the Jackal.

The man in the suit held out his hand. “Mason Hunt, it’s an honor to meet you. I’m Cyprian Cardenas.”

O
UTSIDE, DIRT
AND
rocks crunched under shoes. Ace grabbed Sabrina and pulled her behind one of the upright rafts against the wall. He pressed his knife to her throat while circling his other arm against her stomach, locking her to him.

“Don’t make any noise,” he whispered. “Or I
will
cut you.”

The door to the cavern burst open and slammed against the wall.

“Put him over there.” Feet shuffled and something was dragged across the floor.

Sabrina recognized Stryker’s voice. And she was very worried that she knew who the “him” was. She tried to lean around the raft to see what was going on but Ace yanked her back and pressed the knife harder against her skin. She sucked in a breath when the blade bit into her neck.

“Is he dead?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

“No, but he will be,” Stryker gritted out. “The crazy idiot killed half our men. When he wakes up I’ll make him tell us where Hightower is. Then we’ll kill him. Make sure he’s secure. I don’t want him getting loose. There’s another fool running around out here somewhere. Watch your backs. His name is Ace and he’s just as crazy as this one. I’m pretty sure I saw him skulking through the trees when we crossed the river.”

“What do you want us to do if we find him? Tie him up and bring him back here?” one of them asked.

“No. I’ve never cared for that sniveling troublemaker. It’s too bad he wasn’t inside that church that our boss had me blow up all those years ago to help recruit Ace to the cause.”

“Church?”

“Never mind. Don’t try to catch him. If you see him, kill him.”

Ace stiffened against Sabrina and his breath rattled next to her ear. She had to tilt her neck way back to keep the knife from cutting her again. Every muscle in his body had tensed at the mention of the church.

Shoes clomped across the floor as the men filed out. The sound of the door slamming shut echoed inside, followed by the click of an electronic lock.

Ace’s arm went slack. “Son of a bitch,” he whispered. “He’s the one I’ve been searching for all this time. Son of a bitch.”

Sabrina scooted away from him and was surprised when he didn’t go after her. His arms dropped to his sides and the knife skittered across the floor, forgotten. Sabrina kept expecting some kind of trick. But he stared unseeing at the raft in front of him, his face a mask of hatred and grief.

She scooped the knife up and worked it sideways, cutting the ropes that bound her hands together. A few more slashes and the ropes fell away from her legs. With one last glance at Ace, she rushed around the raft.

“Oh, no,” she breathed. Mason was lying on the floor, his entire body encased in a rope net with more ropes tied around it. His face was ashen, his eyes closed.

Dropping to her knees beside him, she began sawing on the ropes.

M
ASON FOUGHT HIS
way through the layers of darkness. Wires still burned his back, but part of him knew this wasn’t real. There was something important he had to remember.

Sabrina.

He groaned, the tightness against his chest bringing back the fiery pain. The net. The ropes. The wires. No. The wires were a long time ago.

Sabrina. He had to fight for her. He had to help her.

He drew several deep breaths and focused on what his senses told him. The smell: musty, damp. The air: cool, but no breeze. Was he in a cave? Bright lights shined against his closed eyelids, but not bright like the sun.

He lay very still, breathing deep and even, fighting his mind’s attempts to drag him back to the horrors of his past. The rope holding his right arm dropped away. He tensed, ready to spring. The bindings slackened on his other arm, then dropped. Sweat rolled down the side of his face as he kept fighting the darkness, focusing on staying in the here and now in spite of the ropes that still bound his chest and his legs. Slow, deep breaths.

The moment he was free, he opened his eyes and grabbed the hands above him, one with a very large knife.

“Mason, stop,” Sabrina rushed to say, but he was already letting her go.

The visible relief on her face shamed him. Thank God he hadn’t hurt her.
This time.
His gaze dropped to the smear of red blood on her neck and his stomach dropped.
Or had he?

“What happened? Are you okay? Did I . . . did I do that?” His hand shook as he reached toward her. Suddenly she was jerked backward.

The knife was tugged out of her hands and pressed against her throat. Mason lunged forward. He froze a foot from her, looking down the barrel of a gun.

Ace narrowed his eyes from behind Sabrina. “Back off, Hunt.”

Mason slowly raised his hands and inched back on his knees. “Let her go. It’s me you want.”

“You’re right. You’re both on my short list, but not at the top. Not yet. Back. Up.” He pressed the knife harder, forcing Sabrina’s head back.

Mason immediately backed up a few feet, still on his knees, ready to launch himself the moment he saw an opening.

“You didn’t cut me, Mason,” Sabrina rasped, risking getting cut to reassure him.

Relief flashed through him that he hadn’t been the one to hurt her. But it quickly burned away beneath his growing rage. The red smears of blood on Sabrina’s neck had him aching to get his hands around Ace’s throat. This time, he would show no mercy. The second Ace had put his knife to her throat, he’d sealed his fate.

Ace motioned with his gun. “I need you to make a phone call.”

“I don’t have a phone. It was ruined when I jumped into the river.”

Ace frowned with displeasure. “My phone is clipped to my belt, left side,” he told Sabrina. “Get it, toss it to Hunt. Make a wrong move and I shoot him. Hunt, make a wrong move and I slice and dice your girl.”

A few tense moments later, Mason had the phone.

“Now what?” he asked.

“You’re going to call Buchanan and convince him to personally come here to help you.” He listed the GPS coordinates of their precise location.

“And once he’s here, then what? You’re going to kill him?”

“Bingo. You don’t have to call him, of course. But if you don’t, she dies.”

“I’ll call. But only if you lower the knife.”

Instead of lowering it, he pressed it against Sabrina’s cheek. “You’re not in the position to make demands. Call him. Now.”

Mason dialed Ramsey’s number.

“Put it on speaker,” Ace ordered.

Damn.
He pressed the speaker button.

“This is Ramsey, who’s this?” a voice came through the line.

Ace’s eyes widened and he jerked Sabrina’s hair back, holding the knife against her carotid artery. Sabrina arched her back, twisting her head to the side.

Mason held his hands up in a placating gesture, trying to get Ace to stop. “Ram, it’s Mason,” he said quickly. “I don’t know Buchanan’s number and I need to talk to him. Quick, I’m in a hurry.”

“Okay, just a sec. He’s right here. Hang on.”

Some interference clicked on the line, then, “Mason? It’s Devlin. What’s going on?”

Ace eased the knife away from Sabrina’s throat just a bit, and let go of her hair. If Mason wasn’t so worried right now he’d have laughed at the spitting mad look on Sabrina’s face. She looked like she’d scratch Ace’s eyes out if she got the chance. Mason absorbed all the variables around him, judging distances, angles, probabilities, as he spoke to Buchanan.

“Sabrina and I are holed up in the foothills and need some help. Stryker and his men are prowling the woods looking for us. You’ve always been there when I needed you, buddy. Can you help us out?” He gave Buchanan their GPS location.

“Uh, yeah. We’re driving in from Florida. We stopped in the panhandle to pick up Logan Richards, a friend of my brother, Pierce. By the time we get up your way into the mountains it might be first light. How desperate is your situation? Can you hold out that long?”

Mason raised a brow at Ace.