If I’m coming down with something, I have to move fast before it gets worse, he told himself.
He might not be a one-man strike-force just yet, but he felt up to doing some reconnaissance. Depending on what he discovered, he’d either sneak in and break out his team, or sneak in, find a radio, and call for help.
He peered out of the cave, taking care to keep unseen within the vine curtain. To his dismay, the area around the base was bustling with enemies. A second unmarked plane was coming in for a landing, and a medical team and a security team were waiting for it. When it landed, a man was removed on a stretcher. Ethan was too far away to see anything but that he was lying still and there was a whole lot of blood on his clothes. The medical team jumped on him, there was a brief flurry of action, and then the stretcher-bearers literally ran him inside.
Ethan had no idea who the man was, but a whole lot of unpleasant possibilities came into his head about why he was there and how he’d been wounded. Apex had screwed up the ambush, and he’d had a chance to fight back? He’d been wounded in combat, and Apex had taken advantage of the commotion to snatch him when he was helpless?
Apex had captured Shane by ambushing his team when they’d been in the middle of a firefight and he’d been distracted by trying to save the life of his buddy Justin, who’d been hit and was bleeding out. Destiny had told Ethan about it; Shane still didn’t like to talk about it. Justin wasn’t the only one who’d been left with scars.
I hope you make it, Ethan thought to the man he’d seen so briefly. If you do, I’ll get you out of there. I swear it.
Then, to his surprise, more people got off the plane. They were a pair of big men holding a struggling woman. She was yelling so loudly that Ethan could hear the sound, though he couldn’t understand the words. One of the men put his hand over her mouth.
Ethan tensed to run out, then forced himself to stay still. He’d be taken prisoner immediately, and then how could he help her? As he watched, she apparently bit the hand (Ethan heard an anguished yell, and the hand yanked itself away), stomped on a foot, and made a break for it—toward the base, not away.
That’s weird, Ethan thought.
Her attempt was brave but hopeless. She was instantly jumped by the security team and dragged inside.
I’ll get you out too, Ethan silently vowed to her.
Which meant that he now had five people to rescue, not three. Much as he longed to break in and free everyone instantly, that wasn’t realistic. In fact, getting in the base at all didn’t seem very realistic. Still, he had to try.
Ethan settled back down. He hated to keep the prisoners waiting for an entire day, but he had to make his attempt at night or he’d have no chance at all. With a badly wounded man to deal with, hopefully Apex would be too distracted to do anything irrevocable to anyone any time soon.
He ate another country captain chicken MRE, plowing through it with the reminder that he needed all the strength he could get. Then, exhausted, he dozed off.
He awoke with a start and a jolt of adrenaline, hearing the soft footfalls of someone making a stealthy approach. They were coming closer. He snatched up a rock and crouched, ready to brain the first person to try to crawl into his hideaway.
The footsteps stopped.
“Come out with your hands over your head!” yelled a gruff male voice. Ethan recognized it as that of one of the Apex agents who had searched for him.
He kept silent, rock at the ready. Let them come to him.
“This is your last chance!” shouted the agent.
Ethan didn’t move or speak. Inwardly, he cursed himself for not having gone farther away, or found a better hiding place, or one with a second exit, or—
A familiar metal object was tossed into the cave: a flashbang grenade. Ethan dropped the rock and dove for it, intending to throw it back at them.
It went off in his hand.
The brilliant flash of light blinded him, and the bang left him deaf. He fell to his knees, dizzy and reeling. He’d seen the effect of stun grenades before, and knew that the shock wave disturbed the fluid in the inner ears, giving people vertigo. But he’d never had one go off that close to him before. Though he knew why everything seemed to be whirling and pitching around him, he couldn’t do anything about it but grit his teeth and wait for it to wear off. He couldn
’t fight; he couldn’t even stand up.
Ethan was only vaguely aware of being pulled out of the cave, then dragged through the jungle. His ears were ringing like a fire alarm was going off in his head, and bright afterimages flashed every time he blinked.
By the time the dizziness wore off enough for him to become aware of his surroundings, he was halfway across the airfield. He stayed limp, hoping they’d think he was still incapacitated, while he took in the situation.
It was still day; he must have been found soon after he’d hidden. Or maybe he’d been so exhausted that he’d slept through the night and into the day. Not knowing which it was made him feel even more disoriented.
He was held by two big guards, who were accompanied by four more. More guards had gathered by the entrance to the base, which he was being dragged to. Once he was inside, he’d undoubtedly be locked up.
Right now, he was being hauled past the plane he’d smuggled himself into. He wished like hell he knew how to fly. He’d been offered flying lessons once, but—
He broke off that painful line of thought. No point dwelling on what was past and gone. He had to take the one chance he had, which was to try to escape on foot, now.