“He saw my leg and told me Mark had a bullet wound. He said we were to abort the mission. That’s when he left, looking for John.”
John rubs his head. “We got stopped on our way over to get them. Cole took one man down and sent me ahead to get the guys out. I met Paul and Mark in the hall, and we headed for the door. The last thing I heard was a gunshot and a Cartel falling down the stairs. I glanced back when we were running for our check-in point. I-I—” He shakes his head. “I couldn’t see him.”
My head starts to prickle, my eyes feel fuzzy, and my hands go cold as I listen.
“We waited for him.” Paul takes over because John is barely holding it together. “We waited all night and into the morning. We fixed each other up as best we could and called in for support. By the time they came, the place was cleared out. We were ordered to return here until further notice.”
My eyes shift around the room, trying to absorb what we’re being told. I want so much to yell at them to go back, but I can see they’re as raw as I am. They had to leave a man behind—their Colonel, their friend, and brother. I can’t imagine.
Suddenly, I feel a horrible cramping pain in my stomach, one that matches the pain from the gaping hole in my heart. I wrap my arms around my mid-section as my face breaks out in sweat.
“Savi?” Keith kneels in front of me. “You need to calm down.”
“Calm down? Calm down!” I repeat as the anger burns through me. I stand and feel the pain wrap around my middle.
“Yes, Savannah,” Daniel warns, but I don’t know what they’re getting at.
I back away, running both hands through my hair, tears streaming down my face. My chest feels like it’s going to explode. I raise my arms wide. “You want me to calm down while Cole is sitting in a prison somewhere, or six feet—” I stop, closing my eyes. I feel everyone staring at me. I drop my arms, hitting my legs with a thud. I turn on my heel and head for my room, where I curl up in a ball to ease the pain in my stomach and cry myself to sleep.
Cole
Cole gasps as one of the men sticks his finger in the large gash across his torso. Over the last two days, he has been tortured by some very imaginative assholes. The electric shocks, waterboarding, and whippings haven’t broken him yet. The two rats in front of him seem to be growing bored. They leave him hanging by his wrists from a chain, his feet a foot off the ground. His shoulders have lost any feeling long ago. The pain he should be feeling is blocked by long hours training to turn that part of the brain off.
He watches as they walk down the hallway, forgetting to shut the door. He takes the opportunity to listen to all the sounds in the little house. He concentrates on trying to remember the steps from when he arrived. Eleven steps from the Land Rover, three steps past the doorway, fourteen to the bedroom. He hears a TV turn on, and the opening of twist-off beers. He closes his eyes and slips into meditation mode, taking this time to rest so he will be mentally strong enough when they decide to come at him again.
A bright light burns into his closed eyelids. Cole senses he’s not alone.
A shadow moves in front of his face, and the sound of nails on tile sparks a memory. Savannah’s description of The American’s boots. Cole plays like he’s passed out, hoping to gather something from him.
“So, this is the famous Colonel Cole Logan,” The American says in perfect English.
“Si,señor,” a man’s voice answers.
“How many men did his team kill?”
“Veintiocho.”
Yeah, motherfucker. Twenty-eight down, a billion more rats to go.
“And he’s not talking?”
“No.”
“I think I may know how to fix that.”
Two footsteps later, he gets a hard punch to the stomach.
“Time to wake up, Colonel,” The American says sharply.
Cole coughs and struggles to catch his breath, then leans forward, taking in what the man is wearing. His signature black and white suit, a cowboy hat, and his ridiculous cowboy boots with the gold-headed cobra sticking out at the tips.
“At last, we finally meet after all these years,” he says.
Cole keeps silent and watches him, studying his movements. He has a slight limp in the right leg, and he keeps tilting his head to the left like his neck is hurting.
“So, I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re going to answer it. Where is my Savannah?”
It takes everything in Cole’s body not to react.