Beau (The Mavericks Book 4) Read online

  She’d been conscious enough at times to confirm she had been on a flight and, at some point later, transferred to a vehicle and then finally, after several days of traveling, she’d been moved into this place. It was a nightmare that wouldn’t end. She figured that she was in some Alcatraz scenario, and nobody gave a shit. They were trying to break her will or at least get compliance from her. So far, she hadn’t been willing to cooperate, hence the nasty conditions she suffered right now. She rolled over and groaned once again. Her shoulders were stretched at such an angle that she couldn’t move her hands behind her to have an extra inch of breathing space.

  After her last bathroom break, her wrists seemed slightly looser than before. Immediately she brought her wrists underneath her butt, and, with great difficulty, forcing her knees tight against her chest, she got her feet through to have her hands in front of her now. As soon as she did that, she stared down at her hands and smiled and quickly unclipped the bungee cords at her ankles.

  Once that was done, she could at least get up and walk around. She almost wept with relief as the blood surged through her body again. She studied her hands, figuring out how she could get them free. It wouldn’t be easy because the clips were on the underside. No matter which way she tried to work them, she couldn’t get them to her mouth, and she couldn’t get her fingers on them either.

  Swearing softly but feeling so much better just having her legs free, she did pull the gag off her mouth and down over her neck. She stood here under the mostly dark sky with the grate above and took in deep, gasping breaths of fresh air. If nothing else she’d done this much. She reached up and could almost touch the grate. She could probably jump up and grab it, but that would not help at all. However, it would most likely stretch her back out from being pretzeled into those horrible positions that they had tossed her in every once in a while.

  Thankfully the moon lit the night, and she could see things around her, since no artificial lighting was in her cell. As she studied the way the grate settled in, she noted that it lifted upward aboveground, not downward where she was. So, pulling down on it wouldn’t help, unless it was so old and so rusted that something broke, which meant she’d have to put her weight on the weakest part. First, was there a weakest part and how could she accurately tell? Second, her weight probably wasn’t enough in this instance. Still, if the grate wasn’t rusted through, just deceptively rusted on the surface, the grate would be structurally sound, so no point in her trying.

  She kept telling herself that she could escape and that there was a way out of here. She also knew that, as long as she was quiet, nobody would check in on her until sunrise or so. They’d already done their bathroom break, and now she was on her own again. She looked closely through the corner of the grate up at the sky and realized she had maybe a six-hour window to get out of here. And, if it took longer than that, … well, she would be in this same position.

  Only much worse.

  Chapter 3

  Danica walked the entire cell several times, but the real problem was her wrists. She had tried biting through the bungee cord, but it wasn’t something that could be cut through easily, and she found nothing in the cell to cut it with.

  She lifted up the cord enough that she got a thumb through it. If she kept working it over, finger by finger, then it would be loose enough that she might get it off. She sat down on her bed, hating to stop for a moment, and then kept working her wrists and her fingers, getting the bungee unwrapped enough that she could loosen it.

  Finally she got one set of fingers free, and, with her wrists slammed tight against each other, she slid one hand out. She wept with joy when she got both hands free. She shook her arms out, her heart slamming against her chest, sure that somebody would have heard her, that somebody would race to her to knock her over the head again and to tie her up harder, tighter, and leave her worse off than before. But, as she sat here, nobody came; nobody gave a shit.

  She was all alone.

  She headed to the door now that her hands were free. With the bungee cord wrapped around one fist to use later as needed, she tried to open the door. It was locked. She didn’t keep working on it because it was most likely the worst way out of here. Instead she would check that grate closer and see if she could find a weak spot.

  The bed wasn’t chained to the wall, so she moved it and then stood on it to look at the grate easier. She studied the corners. One looked to be slightly lower than the other, and that’s maybe where the weakest point would be. She didn’t have much time to spend on this review.

  As she tried to push the grate upward, she realized, with shock and joy, that it lifted. But how could she get it even higher? She hopped back down and turned the bed onto its side, so she was raised up another foot. She slowly, ever-so-slowly, lifted the extremely heavy grate. She could get it up about six or seven inches, but she wasn’t strong enough to lift it completely off.

  Or was she?

  She shifted so that her shoulders were against the grate, lifting it up, and then, using her fingers, she slid it off to the side a few inches at a time.

  It was dark outside, which was both good and bad. She had no idea if anybody around cared or if anyone would help her. Surely her father would know by now that she was missing and would have put out a call for help. And the authorities would somehow find out where she was, even though she didn’t know where exactly herself, but it had taken a plane trip to get her here.

  She knew her father would expect her to contact him—or somebody—as soon as she could, but, hey, life was what it was. And, since she had been given this opportunity, she wouldn’t sit here and wait for anybody to get back to her because she knew the wrong people would be coming.

  If she could just get the grate moved over … She kept working it, inch by inch, until she had enough space above her head that, with any luck, she might crawl through and get out.

  About ninety minutes later, per arrangements made by their Mavericks contact, Beau walked through the state-of-the-art weapons arsenal and stared in admiration at the firepower available. It was just an old shack-looking building from the outside but inside? Wow. “Who knew?” he muttered to Asher.

  “Right?” Asher’s tone was equally odd and low.

  “See the security? The cameras?” Beau noted.

  “Yep. I wish I knew what we would need.”

  “Sixty people inside,” Beau said, “but our people want this low-key. We go in, take the one woman, and leave. We won’t need much.”

  “I want C-4,” Asher said. “You don’t know how much shit we’ll have to blow up.”

  “True,” Beau agreed, and, with that, they set about bargaining with the lone man who’d let them in for the materials they needed. He and Asher still had to carry everything on their backs throughout this mission, and that was a consideration as well. Beau picked up one semiautomatic machine gun, two pistols, enough ammo to go with them, and a lovely knife that he fully planned to keep after this job was over. He also grabbed several blocks of C-4 for himself and then caps and wiring. He looked at Asher to see him loading up the same.

  The bill was paid in cash, Beau planning ahead and taking what he thought would cover this stop from the briefcase of cash now hidden in the truck. When they stepped outside, he took one long look—as the double gate came down—at what now appeared to be an old homestead, the armory hidden inside completely blocked from view.

  As Beau walked to the truck, he said, “Got to remember this place.”

  “Not just anybody gets in there on their own,” Asher said.

  “Obviously, but we’ve been here once. We should be cleared to go again.”

  “Possibly,” Asher said as he reversed the truck and headed away. “Long before now they’ve got pictures of the truck. They’ve got pictures of us, and they’ve got the complete video of our transaction. If I saw two guys carrying out that kind of firepower, I would be filming it all too.”

  Beau said, “I’d want it all documented as well. I don
’t know who or what started that place, but they’re obviously not to be taken lightly.”

  “They are also our savior,” Asher said. “It’s one thing to go pick up a small handgun off the streets. But to get military-grade weapons like this?”

  “I know,” Beau said with a grin. “What’s wrong with us that a shop full of weaponry makes us happy? Guys like to go into a tackle shop or a sportsman’s store, and they get happy. But, for me, it’s always about weapons.”

  “It’s our line of business,” Asher said. He tossed a map made of good old-fashioned paper at Beau. “Let’s find our location.”

  “I already looked up the GPS,” Beau said as he unfolded the map.

  “That’s fine,” Asher said, “but remember. We’re scrambling our phones so nobody can see what we might have looked at online before.”

  “Just in case we get caught,” Beau said with a nod. Standard protocol. Only up here, nothing was standard about this op. If they got into trouble, Beau wasn’t even sure there was anybody to call on. He knew Jax had gotten into trouble, and MI6 had stepped in to help, but Beau and Asher were in Alaska. It’s not like any of the US government departments were around to give them a hand.

  Or were they?

  He looked at Asher. “Any idea if we have any backup?”

  “You and I are it,” Asher said cheerfully. “But I do believe, if we run into trouble, our Mavericks contact will arrange a pickup.”

  “Good,” Beau said. “What about drop-offs?”

  “If supplies are needed, yes,” he said. “Honestly, I think it’s anything we need.”

  “And how great is that?” Beau asked. “But I doubt that’ll involve five-star hotels and expensive luxuries.”

  “It will if we need it for a cover,” he said, “but this job will be dirty. Make sure we’ve got enough bug spray too.”

  “The problem with that,” Beau said, “is how the smell makes it that much easier for others to find us.”

  “I know,” Asher said. “How much garlic have you ingested?”

  “Lots steadily,” he said, “at least since I found out where we would end up. But even that oozing through our pores isn’t any guarantee. I’ve been up here before, and sometimes the horseflies were all over me, and the next time they didn’t give a shit.”

  “Well, let’s hope this time they don’t give a shit.” Asher slipped onto the main highway and headed north.

  “Why north?” Beau asked.

  “I figured we need to ditch the vehicle,” he said, “someplace where we have access to it again. A couple junkyards are on the other side. If we parked our truck there, but close to the road, we could go cross-country.”

  “I like that idea,” Beau said. He reached into his bag and pulled out a couple sandwiches. “Want one?”

  “Yeah,” Asher said, “better we eat now.”

  “We’ve got a six-hour outing, just based on how short the nights are here at this time,” Beau said. “Still, if it takes any longer than that, we’re off our game.”

  “And here I was thinking we could do it in four,” Asher said.

  Beau shook his head. “I don’t like the idea of sixty against two,” he said. “Slow and steady will win this game.”

  “But you know that, once we’re in there, we have to go as fast as we can.”

  “Yet we’ll have to be as silent as we are fast,” Beau cautioned. “Any cult with sixty people on its compound will have plenty of firepower. And chances are their firepower will be just as good as if not better than ours.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, that hidden military supply shack that we just stocked up at also probably supplies the guards at the cult,” Beau said. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that old guy hasn’t already sent the cult a message about us.”

  “Shit,” Asher said under his breath. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “I slipped him a bit of extra money,” Beau said. “He pocketed it without a word, but that’s no guarantee that he won’t let anybody else know. If the cult is a good customer, he might very well think it’s worth having them take us out anyway.”

  “That’s not good news,” Asher said, tightening and loosening his grip several times on the steering wheel.

  “No, but it’s not bad either.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, they may know two men are coming and probably won’t get too bothered about a couple men against their sixty,” Beau said, “but we can still surprise them when they don’t know from what direction or when.”

  “No, but we have to get there fast,” Asher said. “The longer they have to plan and organize, the worse it’ll be for us.”

  “Exactly, so you’ll drop me off first at the edge of the compound, and then you’ll take the vehicle and park it where we planned. We have our communications and can stay in touch.”

  “Okay,” Asher said, nodding his approval. “I like that.”

  “Just don’t get too far behind,” Beau said.

  “No,” Asher said. “I’m the only backup you’ve got.”

  “Right,” Beau said. “And chances are I’ll need you whole and healthy.”

  “No chance about it,” Asher said. “You know this is almost a suicide mission, right?”

  “We’ve been here before,” Beau said. “At least it’s clear-cut.”

  “Have you figured out how to identify her versus any of the others?”

  “She hasn’t been there for very long,” he said, “but, yeah, that’ll be the problem. We have a recent photo though, depending on what they’ve done to her. If I have to open sixty doors to find her, well …”

  “Right. But still, at least one of those doors will be the wrong one.”

  “I’d highly suspect at least a dozen will be,” Beau said.

  They pulled off to the side of the road about an hour later. Beau quickly grabbed his gear, picked up one more sandwich for the road, and left his stash behind. “Rendezvous back here in two hours—or give me a comm tap if any surprises are in there,” he said. He closed the door quietly and slipped into the brush, and, with that, Asher drove off.

  Beau studied the canopy of trees above him. He checked his watch, considered the time frame, and realized that the moon should be about at its highest point right now. That would help and hinder him, considering how bright the moonlight was tonight. He had two miles to cross to get to the first of the cult’s guard posts that Beau had detected on the satellite imagery. He should make that in no time.

  Chapter 4

  Danica sat on the edge of the bed to catch her breath. Her shoulders were killing her from trying to move the heavy iron grate. She had created just enough space that she thought she could slip through, but every time she tried to pull herself up, her arms gave out. She was weak from lack of food and lack of water—that was one of the kidnappers’ tactics, and that made her angrier than ever.

  She needed to get higher. She looked around for her next gambit to try. Maybe if she shuffled the bed a little more and placed the headboard side under the grate, she could gain another six or eight inches, with the headboard a bit higher than the footboard. It might be just enough.

  She stood, feeling the panic still coursing through her. Just because she assumed that nobody would be back to visit her cell in the next six hours didn’t mean that she was right. And, if she made enough noise, somebody would return for sure. She figured, as soon as she opened up that damn grate, somebody would race toward her.

  Moving as carefully and as silently as she could, she turned the bed a few inches at a time until she had the headboard end under the grate. That meant she had just one post to stand on, and that would take a little more balancing—but that she was good at. She also knew that she wouldn’t get too many chances because, the minute she fell, it would raise a kerfuffle that she wasn’t sure she would recover from.

  With the bed positioned the best she could, she carefully stepped on the one post and stretched upward so that she could ca
tch a corner of the metal framing above. With that contact accomplished, she jumped off the bed, using the momentum to place her arms on top of the edge of the opening and hung there, not quite strong enough to pull herself up and clear.

  She swore under her breath, using anything—kicking out, pushing hard, pulling harder—to get her legs up. Her back kept hitting the grate behind her. Yet … Even though the grate was half off her exit hole, the damn thing weighed a ton, was pretty securely straddling three sides of this hole. So she could use its resistance right now. She twisted slightly and shifted her hands, one by one, to grab the grate now, positioning herself a little bit better.

  Danica had her exit completely free and clear now. Plus she faced it fully. This should help. She kicked up once more, gave herself a good foothold on the metal frame, moved her feet an inch or two forward on the grass atop her cell this time, somehow levered her body from below the grate to now atop it, and got her belly over that.

  It held.

  Maybe, just maybe, she could do this.

  With her mouth wide open, gasping for air like a fish out of water, she tried to be as silent as possible. She had to get her full body on solid ground, not hanging over an open hole to her cell. Should have thought this through better. And way the hell before right now. Her limbs were shaking, and she had to make a move, fast. She finally walked her feet along the grass to the side of the hole where the grate lay, where her torso was, then rolled off the grate and collapsed on the ground.

  The dew from the cool grass soaked into her back as she stared up at the moonlight, trying to get her bearings. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do now, but somehow she’d gotten out of that nasty little hole. She worried about having to close the grate to hide her escape but realized there wasn’t any use; it had been either up through the grate or out the door. Besides, her kidnappers would know from the bed’s position how she had escaped.

  She raised her head, looked around, and all she could see were trees and brush. Where was the goddamn compound? She’d been in a building originally, but it was so dark out now that she couldn’t see anything. The last thing she wanted to do was head in the wrong direction. More than that, she didn’t dare take a chance on anybody seeing her. Just because she thought nobody was around did not mean it was true.