Prologue
Six men sat around a table on the military plane studying a map of the Mexican countryside closely. They were called in for a special assignment. A Senator’s daughter had been drugged and kidnapped while she was partying in Las Vegas with friends and hustled over the border before anyone knew she was missing. No ransom note had arrived and that meant the kidnappers were most likely sex traffickers. They wanted a pretty woman they could sell as a sex slave in the bowels of Mexico or beyond.
Wolf, Dude, Abe, Mozart, Benny, and Cookie were all members of the SEAL team that had been chosen to do some recon and see if they couldn’t find out where the woman was taken…and bring her home.
The seventh unofficial member of the team, Tex, was in Virginia working his magic with his contacts and computer. In today’s day and age, no one was completely off the map. Even terrorists and kidnappers used electronics to communicate with each other. The second they logged onto the Internet, or used a cell phone, Tex would find them.
“Benny, you and Dude will be in charge of extraction. Wait with the helicopter and be ready for the signal,” Matthew “Wolf” Steel commanded.
The men nodded in agreement. Benny and Dude had the most experience in flying a helicopter and were the best choices to man the multi-million dollar aircraft. Wolf was the unofficial leader of their group. Every man respected the hell out of him and would follow him into Hell if he asked.
“Abe, you and I will head into the closest village and see what we can find out from the locals. Cookie, you and Mozart will need to check out both of the possible holding sites we’ve mapped out. This will have to be a ‘divide and conquer’ mission. We don’t have the time to be a hundred percent sure where they’re keeping the girl. If you find her, radio back to Benny and Dude, they’ll report back to the rest of us and we can all meet up at the coordinates we discussed. Make sure you have the extra set of clothes her father sent, and travel light and fast. We can’t afford to fuck this up, and not just because ‘Daddy’ is a Senator.”
Everyone nodded solemnly. They didn’t give a rat’s ass about what the government or the Senator thought, it was all about the woman. If they didn’t find her, and fast, she’d disappear, probably forever, and become just another horrifying statistic.
“Okay, we’ll land in about twenty minutes. If I hear anything else from Tex, I’ll radio it forward. Let’s do this.”
Every man nodded in agreement, but not much more was spoken. They were all focused on the upcoming mission.
Hunter “Cookie” Knox cracked his neck and went over in his head his role in the extraction. He was headed toward one of two possible camps where the woman could be. They’d gotten intel that the scumbags who’d usually holed up there were communicating with some known human traffickers. Unfortunately, there was another group in the same area, one that ran drugs and was known for also selling the occasional woman. This group had also been active recently and the team was looking into them as well.
Mozart would take one group and Cookie would take the other. Cookie hoped like hell he’d find the woman. Orders were to snatch and grab her, but he wouldn’t be opposed to taking some of the assholes out. Anyone who thought it was okay to kidnap and sell women deserved to die a slow painful death.
The SEAL team had been on too many rescue missions to count, so unfortunately, this was nothing new, but for some reason Cookie’s skin felt too tight. He was way too wound up for this one. He couldn’t wait to get boots on the ground and get the woman the hell out of dodge. The plane started its descent, it was time.
Chapter One
Cookie walked silently through the jungle, every now and then looking down at the GPS clipped to his LBV, Load Bearing Vest, to make sure he was still heading in the right direction. He could feel the sweat dripping from his forehead and he was constantly wiping it away as he continued ducking and dodging trees and obstacles in his path. Cookie was able to cover a good distance every hour, something he knew he wouldn’t be able to do once Julie was with him…if Julie was with him.
Even though their intel told them that it was likely she was being held in one of the two camps, Cookie hoped like hell their information was correct. Sex trafficking wasn’t anything that followed patterns. One time a group might keep a woman for weeks, another woman might be held for only hours. It depended on where, and who, she was headed for.
Even though Cookie was paying attention where he was placing his feet, he still found himself stumbling over roots and mud on the ground. The jungle wasn’t anyplace anyone would ever take a pleasure hike, and Cookie knew the walk back to the extraction point with Julie wasn’t going to be easy. Hell, it wasn’t easy for him, and he was trained, and dressed, for it.
The Senator had given them clothes for his daughter, but even a long sleeve shirt and a pair of pants couldn’t keep the mosquitos out of their eyes and the heat from permeating the very marrow of their bones as they walked back to the extraction point. Cookie knew he’d never take air conditioning for granted again.
He slowed his pace as he got close to his target. The camp was noisy and bustling. The men were consuming large quantities of alcohol and it was obvious they were celebrating something. Cookie kneeled down in the darkness the jungle provided and bided his time. He wanted to rush to the most likely building, sitting off to the side, but he made himself wait. He only had one chance to do this right, and Julie was counting on him to get her out of there. Cookie would wait until the right time. Then he’d make his move.
* * *
Fiona sat in the dark, eyes straining. She wasn’t sleeping well, as usual, and had listened while her captors had partied the night away. They’d grown quiet an hour or so ago and she knew morning was on its way. Fiona had been thinking about how quiet it was, now that the men were most likely passed out, when she thought she heard something. She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination or the drugs they’d been forcing on her, but she didn’t think it was either. Fiona knew every creak and moan in her hellhole, and the sound she heard was out of the ordinary.
Julie, the other woman, was finally silent. She’d cried nonstop for two days. It wasn’t as if Fiona was cold hearted, but Julie wouldn’t listen to her and wouldn’t be consoled. Fiona tried to remember back to when she was first brought here, but it was impossible. It was just too long ago. She thought it had been around three months, but she couldn’t be sure. Fiona had tried to keep track, but she knew there were some days that she’d been out of it from the drugs her captors been forcing on her. Ninety days, one hundred days…whatever it was, it was a lifetime.
There. A small beam of light in the corner. Fiona knew it wasn’t the guards, they weren’t going to sneak around, and they certainly wouldn’t just have a small flashlight. Who was it? What was it? Fiona was afraid to hope.
Fiona knew no one was coming for her. She didn’t have any family back home, and her friends were more acquaintances than anything else. She knew how these things worked. When someone was kidnapped, the family would do whatever it took to get back their loved one…but in her case, she had no one. Fiona was at the mercy of the kidnappers, had been at their mercy for three long months, and no one was going to rescue her.
Her mind almost veered toward the hell she’d been through at the kidnappers’ hands, but Fiona clamped it down. She couldn’t go there. Didn’t know if she’d ever be able to go there again. Her new mantra was to survive one day at a time, but even that little rebellion against her captors was on shaky ground. Fiona had slowly picked up some Spanish during her captivity, and the words she’d been able to translate, namely, drug, die, bitch, and dirt, weren’t making her think happy thoughts. But Fiona would much rather face death head-on than suffer through whatever the men had in store for Julie. No contest.
* * *
Cookie had been dropped off five miles away by Dude and Benny in the chopper. The plan was to grab the woman, and set off back through the jungle. Cookie was prepared for anything, or so he thought. He half chuckled to himself. Hell, they tried to be prepared for anything, but as they usually found out Plan A sometimes didn’t work, and Plan B typically became the new Plan A. Every now and then the team would have to come up with a Plan C on the fly when both the other plans became FUBAR, fucked up beyond all recognition.
Cookie stealthily made his way toward the ramshackle building at the edge of the camp. It was early in the morning, and pitch dark. He’d watched as the men in the camp drunk themselves into a stupor and staggered around the camp. Some fell in the dirt and their so-called buddies just left them there to sleep off the alcohol.
They’d been partying for a reason; these types of men didn’t have money to waste on getting drunk every night. Cookie hoped like hell he was in the right place. They could be celebrating selling the woman he was here to find. He hoped he wasn’t too late. If they’d already sold Julie, there was little chance the team would be able to get her back. She’d disappear, just as hundreds of women did every year.
Cookie turned his penlight on for just a moment so he could get his bearings. There was no noise coming from the small rectangular building. His intelligence said the woman could be here, and the men’s actions outside seemed to confirm it. Mozart was about twenty clicks north of his location, checking out a second possible site. The twelve miles or so between them might as well have been a hundred. Mozart was too far away to provide backup, and the reverse was true as well.
If the building was empty, Cookie would fade away back into the jungle and meet back up with Wolf and Abe who were waiting in the closest town for the results of their investigations.
The woman that he’d come after, Julie, had been missing for five days. Five days of Hell. Five days too long in Cookie’s opinion. Hell, one day was too long.
Cookie and his SEAL team brothers had seen all of this before. He’d never get used to the fact that humans were sold for sex slaves. It was so barbaric. Cookie thought about his teammates’ women being in this type of situation and it made his skin crawl. Caroline and Alabama were two of the strongest women he knew. Caroline had saved Wolf’s life twice. Cookie knew women were stronger, in general, than most men gave them credit for.
But this, being kidnapped and knowing you were to be sold into a life of abuse and sexual depravity never to be free again, that was something Cookie didn’t know how anyone could survive with their sanity intact.
Julie was the daughter of a Senator, and probably one of the only reasons Cookie and his team were in Mexico. If it had been anyone else, any other less-rich, less-politically motivated father, the family would’ve had to try to work with the local police, or private investigators, and gotten nowhere. Cookie went back to his thought that no woman, no human, should have to go through what Julie had inevitably gone through since she’d been kidnapped. Cookie figured she’d probably been raped repeatedly to try to scare her into submission. She was probably starved and scared out of her mind. Cookie knew Julie would most likely need years of counseling to help her become normal again…if he could find her and get her out of the jungle safely.
If Julie could walk, it’d make his job easier, but he was prepared to carry her if he needed to. Cookie knew she was a small woman, only about five feet two inches tall and weighing about a hundred and ten pounds. He figured she’d probably lost weight the week she’d been in captivity, so he knew he wouldn’t have any issues carrying her through the jungle if he needed to.
The pack he normally carried on missions weighed about what Julie did, but Cookie had gone light for this trip. He carried only the bare necessities for their trek back through the thick trees. He wanted to be able to move quickly and silently, and that’d be easier if he had less weight to carry.
Cookie also had his first aid kit so he could help Julie in any medical way if she needed it, and she probably would. Human traffickers weren’t known to be the nicest of people. The change of clothes he’d brought in her size would protect her from the insects and plants as they cut back through the jungle to the extraction point. He was carrying extra water and food rations for the two of them for a day or two as well.
Cookie moved silently to the building and shone his light briefly on the corner. Bingo. The boards were rotted here from the heat and wetness of the jungle. They’d be easier to remove. Cookie knew the kidnappers were in the other buildings, most of them passed out, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He wanted to get Julie and get the hell out of there without anyone noticing. If luck was with him, he and Julie would be long gone before the kidnappers realized she’d escaped.
Cookie removed two boards, just enough for him to squeeze through, and eased himself into the room, not knowing what he’d find. He didn’t want to just shine his light into the room because if it wasn’t where Julie was being held, he could be in a rash of shit.
Fiona held her breath. She could hear whoever it was working on the wall in the corner. She’d thought many times that if she could only reach the walls she could escape out into the jungle…but since she was chained to the floor, she couldn’t get anywhere near them. She watched as a man, Fiona assumed it was a man, eased himself into the room.
There was only the light coming in from the moonlight through the hole he’d made in the wall, but since Fiona’s eyes were adjusted to the darkness, she could see surprisingly well. The man was big, and had a large pack on his back. He wore all black and was focused on Julie, who was lying on the floor on his side of the room. Since she was on the other side of the rectangular building, Fiona didn’t think the man could see her through the inky blackness of the night.
Cookie tried to breathe through his nose. The smell in the room was putrid. It smelled like urine, sweat, blood, and fear. Some people would scoff at his saying he could smell fear, but Cookie had been in enough hell holes, and seen enough bad shit in his career, to know that fear had an odor. It wasn’t something he could readily explain to someone else, but anyone who’d been in combat and had seen the things he had, would know immediately what he meant.
He’d been in a lot of bad places with his SEAL team, but this was one of the worst. Cookie hadn’t thought the sex traffickers had the woman long enough for it to get this bad, but he supposed anything was possible. Everyone dealt with the shit that happened in their lives differently, and because Julie was from a rich, powerful family, Cookie supposed she didn’t have the coping mechanisms other people did.
Cookie saw a shape on the floor that had to be Julie. His pulse shot up even higher than it already was. The adrenaline coursed through his body. He’d found her. Thank God.
“Julie,” Cookie whispered, while briefly touching her shoulder. The woman rolled over, looked up and took a huge intake of breath. Knowing what was coming, Cookie quickly put his hand over Julie’s mouth to stifle her scream. He quickly tried to reassure her.
“My name is Cookie, I’m an American Navy SEAL. I’m here to take you home.” His words were toneless and quiet. They barely penetrated the few inches from his mouth to her ears, but she heard them nonetheless.
Julie nodded frantically and started to cry. “Thank God,” she whispered brokenly after Cookie had removed his hand from her mouth.
Cookie didn’t waste any time trying to reassure her further, but instead got to work freeing her. He was pissed. Julie was attached to the floor by a short chain attached around her ankle. She had some freedom of movement, but not a lot. There was a bucket nearby, Cookie assumed for Julie to relieve herself in.
“Can you stand? Can you walk?” Cookie asked Julie, again in the toneless quiet voice he’d used before.
Julie nodded, but swayed when she stood up. Cookie dug in his pack and got out the black long sleeved shirt he’d brought for her. She was small, almost dainty, and fragile looking. Cookie helped Julie put each arm through the sleeves. He then took out the black cargo pants. Eying Julie’s build, he thought they might actually be a bit big, but he hoped they’d do.
“Julie, take off your shorts and put these on, quickly.” Cookie wasn’t known as being a gentle man, and he couldn’t help it if he sounded short. He knew time was against them, they had to get out of there and disappear into the jungle before the kidnappers started sobering up and came to haul Julie out of there and give her to her new owner.
“What?” Julie said huffily, “I couldn’t possibly with you here…” Cookie cut her off with a hand over her mouth again. “Look, do you want to get out of here or not? You can’t walk out in that jungle with shorts on, just put the damn pants on.”
Cookie half turned to give Julie as much privacy as he could. He didn’t like the whiny tone of her voice, but tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. She was scared out of her mind. He could try harder to be pleasant. Cookie tried to imagine Caroline or Alabama in Julie’s shoes. The thought made him soften his voice. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be so abrupt. Let me know when you’re ready.”
“Please, let’s just go,” was Julie’s response. Cookie turned and saw that she’d put the pants on and was holding onto the waist with one hand. The pants fit, but barely. Cookie steadied her when she stumbled as she lurched toward the corner of the room where he’d entered. Julie’s hand gripped his shirt into a ball as they headed for the exit.
As Cookie turned to leave the room, he took one last glance around the long room and stilled and narrowed his eyes. He thought he saw something at the other side. Was he seeing things? Cookie cocked his head and strained to listen. Were they about to be caught? Was it one of the men? Cookie gripped the knife at his waist and waited, every muscle ready to leap into action.
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