I looked at the section of the wall where the chain was attached. I thought that I might be able to either pull it out or be able to dig it out from the hard clay. The high heels on my shoes, which I miraculously still had, would be a handy digging tool.
I laughed at my thought that high heels were good for a few things. The first was to make women’s legs and booties look better. The second was to create feet and back aches. The third was for self-defense—there was nothing in the world like whacking an enemy with a nice set of heels. And now, I learned they could be used as digging tools.
At the sound of my laughter, one of the guards stuck his head in the doorway. He must have thought that I was losing my mind. He had no way of knowing that I was plotting my escape and that I was merely entertaining myself.
Perhaps, though, it was better if they thought that I was going a little crazy. It might make them lessen their guard around me a little bit. If I could manage to grab a key and unlock the chains, that would be better than my contingency plans.
I kept track of the days by making notches on the wall. I could see I wasn’t the only person to do that. Three other sets of notches went to eleven and then stopped. I guessed that the other hostages were eliminated on day eleven. I was on day five.
The blankets kept the hole under the hut wall hidden from view. I was a curvy woman, so I needed to make sure that my shoulders, chest, and butt would fit through any escape tunnel I made. It would never do to get halfway out and then get stuck by my rounded booty.
I was pretty sure that I would have a hole big enough in a few days. Then, I would start working on the area of the wall where the chain was attached.
That evening, I heard a bit of a scramble outside my hut. I thought that perhaps a couple of the guards got into a fight. However, it lasted only a minute or so, so I figured it couldn’t have been much of a fight.
About an hour later, my dinner arrived. The man who handed me the dish had the most intense, beautiful silver eyes I had ever seen in my life. I was certain that I had fallen in love with those eyes. I was also certain that the cavalry had arrived.
1
Jared
Irubbed my eyes and sighed. It was about nine in the morning, and I was already bored. Today was paperwork day. Normally, we left the paperwork to others, but since it contained highly classified information, I was stuck doing it. I envied Andrew, who was out teaching our elite team of security officers self-defense tactics.
Andrew and I had recently retired from the Army. I had been a Ranger, and Andrew was a Green Beret. Adjusting to the monotony of civilian life had been difficult.
Luckily, I had served with Gage, who had also been an Army Ranger. We got together to form a security company that supplied cyber and physical security for companies. We also ran special missions that might be out of the scope of regular government agencies, such as finding missing people.
I listened to Andrew explaining a new technique for a minute, then turned my attention back to my paperwork. I was finally focusing on what I was doing when I heard a loud commotion at the front of the building. A few seconds later, Gage poked his head into my office and said, “Jared, we need you.”
Happily, I turned away from the computer screen, stood up, stretched, and headed into the conference room.
Several other team members were there with a short man in a wrinkled suit that looked as though it had been slept in. His face was pale, and he had huge, purple bags under his bloodshot eyes.
Gage stood up. “This is John Cunningham. He owns Cunningham Cyber Operations, an international multi-million dollar company. Three days ago, his daughter, Elise, disappeared from London. She has been taken hostage by Iranian terrorists in front of several people who did nothing to stop it. This morning, he received a video that was hand-delivered to his home.”
Gage put a disk into our computer that was hooked up to our SmartBoard and played it.
A disheveled woman sat tied in a chair in a dirty hovel. She said that she had been taken hostage and that the terrorists are demanding a million dollars. Then, she tells her father not to pay the ransom, because they would kill her anyway.
I already admired this woman’s spunk. She wasn’t about to be beaten down by these guys, even though she had to be scared to death. She seemed like a woman that I would like.
Gage said, “Mr. Cunningham says he will give us the million that the terrorists demanded if we bring his daughter home safely.”
We would have taken the case anyway, but a million dollars would go a long way in purchasing more equipment and supplies that would help us on future missions.
There was no question that we were going to accept the mission.
Gage, Lucien, Damien, and I would go on the mission. Being shifters, we had special abilities that would help us succeed. Gage was a bear shifter, Lucian a dragon shifter, and Damien was a tiger shifter. I was a wolf shifter. That gave us extra strength and power, as well as extra cunning.
Andrew, Alex, and the others would stay behind and help us coordinate everything. They fitted the four of us with special earring trackers that wouldn’t come off when we transformed into our different beings.
We all had our bags ready, so we were able to board our plane within the hour and head out to an Iraqi airport. We would have to sneak across the Iranian border.
During the flight, we debriefed. We knew the methods of the group. Elise had been right in her video. They would kill her regardless of her father’s cooperation if these were the same guys that had kidnapped a few other wealthy women. That meant we had to get in, get her, and get out.
Alex transmitted the location of the hideout based on information from the video and intel. Satellite images showed that the camp wasn’t huge, but it was at the base of a mountain, so it was well protected.
We decided that Gage, Lucian, and Damien would cause a distraction in three different locations in the camp that were away from the likely shed where Elise was being kept. I would go in and get her, then the five of us would meet up later at a designated area. A helicopter would pick us up and take us back home.