Authors: Laura Griffin
Tags: #Romance, #General, #Suspense, #Contemporary, #Fiction
Unstoppable
Also by Laura Griffin
Snapped
Unforgivable
Unspeakable
Untraceable
Whisper of Warning
Thread of Fear
One Wrong Step
One Last Breath
Pocket Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Laura Griffin
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Pocket Books ebook edition February 2012
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ISBN 978-1-4516-7364-7 (eBook)
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KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN
0200 hours
Sometimes they went
in with a flash and crash, but Lieutenant Gage Brewer always preferred stealth. And tonight, because the team’s mission was to outsmart a band of Taliban insurgents, stealth was the operative word.
The night smelled like smoldering garbage and rot as Gage crept through the darkened alley in an industrial neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. They were in a hot zone, a place where anyone they encountered would like nothing better than to use them for target practice.
As the SEAL team’s point man, Gage moved silently, every sense attuned to the shadows around him. Particularly alert at this moment was Gage’s sixth sense—that vague, indefinable thing his teammates liked to call his frog vision. Gage didn’t know what to call it; he only knew it had saved his ass a time or two.
In the distance, the muted drone of an electric generator in this city still prone to blackouts. And, closer still, footsteps. The slow clomp of boots on gravel, moving steadily nearer, then pausing, pivoting, and fading away.
Wait,
Gage signaled his team. Lieutenant Junior Grade Derek Vaughn melted into the shadows, followed a heartbeat later by Petty Officers Mike Dietz and Adam Mays. Gage approached the corner of the building, an unimposing brick structure that was supposedly a textile factory. Crouching down, he slipped a tiny mirror from the pocket of his tactical vest and held it at an angle in order to see around the corner.
A solitary shadow ambled north toward the front of the building, an AK-47 slung casually across his body. The shadow told Gage three things: the intel they’d been given was good, this building
was
under armed guard, and what was going down tonight at this factory had nothing to do with textiles.
Gage eased back into the alley.
“Sixty seconds,” Vaughn whispered.
Gage had known Vaughn since BUD/S training. Besides being a demolitions expert, the Texan had the best sense of time and direction of any man in Alpha squad, and tonight he was in charge of keeping everyone on schedule.
Soundlessly, they waited.
Then, like clockwork, a distant
rat-tat-tat
as the rest of Alpha squad exchanged carefully staged, nonlethal gunfire in an alley much like this one.
Beside Gage, the building came alive. Footsteps thundered in a stairwell. Excited voices carried through the walls. A door banged open and more shouts filled the night as men poured from the building. A truck engine roared to life. Gage and his teammates watched from the shadows as a pickup loaded with heavily armed insurgents peeled off, no doubt to help wipe out the American commandos gullible enough to walk into a trap.
Twenty more seconds and Vaughn gave the signal. Gage peered around the corner. The guard now stood in a pool of light spilling down from a second-story window. The sour expression on his bearded face told Gage he wasn’t too happy about being stuck guarding hostages while his comrades got to slaughter American soldiers. His lips moved, and Gage guessed he was cursing his prisoners—two Afghani teachers whose heinous crime had been taking a job at a newly opened school for girls.
Their boss, the school’s principal, had been beheaded on live Webcam two days ago.
Watching the footage had made Gage’s blood boil. But his anger was tempered now, a tightly controlled force he would use to carry out his mission.
In addition to rescuing the Afghanis, the SEALs were tasked with finding and retrieving forty-two-year-old Elizabeth Bauer, an American reporter who had been working on a story for the Associated Press when the Taliban stormed the school. She was thought to be next in line for execution, if she wasn’t dead already.
Gage chose to believe she was still alive—at least, pictures of her beheading weren’t yet bouncing around cyberspace. The picture Gage
had
seen—the one provided during the briefing—reminded him of his aunt back in Chicago. The minute he’d seen it, Gage had felt an emotional connection that went beyond his usual hundred-and-ten-percent commitment to an op.
The guard turned the corner. Vaughn and Dietz fell back, circling around to the building’s other side.
Follow me,
Gage signaled Mays. The kid was young, green. He’d grown up in Tennessee and spoke with the thickest accent Gage had ever heard. But he could shoot like nobody’s business.
A quiet
thud
as they rounded the corner told Gage that Vaughn and Dietz had neutralized the guard about ten seconds ahead of schedule. Gage stepped over the lifeless body and entered the building with his finger on the trigger of his M4. He glanced around. The space was dim and cavernous, empty except for a few junked-out trucks and some tires piled in corners. A band of light shone onto the dirt floor from some sort of upstairs office. Given the satellite dish they’d seen mounted outside, Gage figured it was used as a media room. According to their intel, the hostages were being kept in the basement.
Vaughn went up to take out any hostiles who might have stayed behind. Gage scanned the room’s perimeter and quickly located an open doorway leading down to a lower level.
The earthen steps were steep and Gage took them silently. Clearing out the bulk of the tangos with a diversion had been a good plan, but one that relied on a fair amount of luck. Gage was a gambling man, and the first rule of gambling was that luck eventually ran out. He expected an armed guard at the foot of the stairs and that’s exactly what he found.
Gage delivered a well-placed blow with the butt of his rifle, rendering the man unconscious before his weapon even clattered to the floor. A collective gasp went up from across the room as Gage knelt down to collect the Kalashnikov. He slung it over his shoulder while Mays zip-cuffed the guard. Their orders were to keep at least one of them alive, if possible, in case they needed him for information.
The hostages stumbled to their feet and Gage turned his flashlight on them. The beam illuminated two slightly built Afghani men and a fortyish woman.
“Lieutenant Gage Brewer, U.S. Navy.” He zeroed in on the woman. “Ma’am, are you—”
“Betsy Bauer.” She reached out and touched his arm, as if to make sure he was real. “And I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life.”
Vaughn tromped down the steps to join them. “All clear up there.” He held up a piece of black cloth. It was a flag with a skull and a sword painted on it, and Gage recognized it from the video footage.
He’d found the beheading room.
“Anyone injured?” This from Dietz, the team corpsman. “Anything that might prevent you from—”