Tactical Rescue

Zack was shouting at her. Not at the men who’d just abducted her. She hesitated. Her feet weren’t two steps away from the kidnappers’ van. Thick, endless forest spread out around her on every side. And Zack just expected her to drop to the ground instead of running?

Dmitry climbed out the driver’s-side door. Ivan stumbled across the back of the van toward them. Zack’s eyes cut sideways at Rebecca.

“Do it!” Zack said. “Trust me! Just get down.”

Her head shook. “But—”

Ivan’s bulk filled the van’s back door. With one large, steady hand he aimed his gun at Zack’s face and barked something in a foreign language. Zack didn’t move a muscle. Dmitry walked around the side of the van, slowly.

“She’s coming with us.” Dmitry trained his gun on Zack’s face.

Zack paused a long moment, without moving or speaking, as if he didn’t even see the guns or the men behind them. Then Zack shrugged and shook his head.

“She? You mean, this one?” Zack pointed one finger at Rebecca, shook his head and tapped his chest in a slow, exaggerated motion. “No, no. She’s coming with me.”

Ivan laughed. It was an ugly sound bordering on a snarl. His finger hovered on the trigger. “No, I kill you. She comes with me.”

Rebecca stood, with broken glass under her boots and legs tensed to spring. Zack was so calm and so in control, it was as if he was haggling over the price of meat instead of fighting for her life. Something within her tugged at the corner of her heart, reminding her of the sweet, sensitive man who she’d once trusted enough to spar with. She’d trusted Zack with her life back then. He was the first man she’d ever really trusted.

But how could she trust him now?

He’d kept secrets from her. He hadn’t told her who he was. Her life was in danger and he was being so casual about it, he was almost cold. Zack hadn’t just transformed his body to look like the jocks who’d once made them both feel worthless. Now he sounded just like them, too.

Zack shrugged again, rolling his shoulders up and down in a slow rise and fall that seemed to accentuate every curve of his muscular chest.

“This one, she’s a bit difficult. Clumsy, you know, and a chatterbox.” He made a mouth with his fingers and flapped it up and down in the same dismissive “talking” gesture Seth had once used to hurt and belittle her. “But I promised my boss I’d take her somewhere. You understand how this works. You have a job to do. I have a job to do. Maybe we can figure something out. How much is your boss paying you for her?”

The question hung in the air. Ivan and Dmitry glanced at each other. Neither answered. And now, Rebecca was too angry to even let the fear she was feeling even take hold. Zack didn’t look at her. One of Zack’s hands still held the gun firmly in its grip. The other was just inches away from it. She used to feel so safe in his arms. She didn’t doubt either the speed or aim he’d be able to pull the trigger with. But now, standing next to him, she felt anything but safe. She felt like that awkward, clumsy female in the martial arts class nobody wanted to get stuck with.

No, worse than that. She felt like a worthless scrap of meat in a dogfight.

“Ivan, is it?” Zack nodded to the man’s tattoo on the man’s neck. His voice rose. “You don’t want to take this woman. She’s a bad assignment. Cut your losses and move on. It’s not worth the trouble.”

Ivan snapped something at Dmitry. Dmitry shouted back. In an instant, both men were arguing so loudly they were almost bellowing.

Zack tilted his head and leaned toward Rebecca. “Trust me, okay? Do whatever I say to do. Without question.”

“No bribe!” Ivan shouted in English. “No money. No deal. No bribe. We’re taking her now.” He pointed one finger at Rebecca. “You. Girlie. Hands up. Come here, now.”

She nearly laughed. Did these men not see the gun Zack had trained at their heads? True, it was two guns against one, but it was not as if Zack was about to let them drive off with her.

“Okay, okay.” Zack lowered his gun and forced an artificial chuckle from this throat.

What? she nearly screamed inside her own head.

Ivan’s snarl turned into a smirk. “You’re just going to give us the girl?”

Zack shrugged. “What can I say? Like I said, she is clumsy. She will take two steps, trip over her own feet and fall down.”

Ivan snapped something to Dmitry.

“No, no, don’t shoot me, Dmitry!” Zack raised his hands. “You shoot me. I shoot you. Ivan here gets the girl and the money.”

There was a long pause. Wind brushed the trees. Ivan shifted his feet. Zack stood firm on the pavement.

Zack turned to Rebecca. “Go around to the passenger’s-side door. I’ll stay here with this man and we’ll work things out.”

Her head shook. Tears were forming in her eyes. “If I get into their van, they’ll kill me.”

Firm gray eyes cut at Rebecca. “Passenger side. Go.”

* * *

Zack could feel his heart beating in his chest, slow and steady.

He could sense Rebecca beside him without even looking her way. He knew how she was standing and how her limbs were moving. He knew exactly how much space was between their two bodies. He could feel the fear rolling off her shoulders like waves. He could hear the ragged, desperate sound of her breathing and wished there was a way he could still it.

Trust me, Becs. Please. I know what I’m doing. I know who these men are, how they think and how to keep you safe. Just walk around to the passenger side of the van, take two steps and hit the ground.

What were two members of Black Talon, a violent Eastern European crime syndicate, even doing in Canada? There’d been rumors recently of an internal power struggle within Black Talon. Members killing other members for control of the syndicate. What was more worrying was that both Canadian intelligence and weapons kept turning up in the hands of one faction. His special ops unit had recently been tasked with trying to determine, without any real leads, where the leak was coming from. It was possible these two men were former members who’d gotten ahold of forged immigration documents from the same source, come to North America and turned mercenaries for hire. But the hackles on the back of his neck, and the way they’d responded to his questions about their boss, made him suspect they were the real deal.

Did they suspect he was Canadian military? He’d tried to throw them off by calling them “Dmitry” and “Ivan” as if he thought the tattoos were the men’s real names, as opposed to the names of their first confirmed kills.

All Zack was waiting for now was for Rebecca to get herself out of harm’s way. Then he could rush Ivan and safely disarm him. After that he’d take out Dmitry.

But Rebecca wasn’t moving. Had she not understood his signal? Did his directions confuse her? True, they hadn’t seen each other in years. But they used to be so tight it was as though they could read each other’s thoughts. The soldier in Zack told him that when the hostage one was rescuing became a liability, it was important to focus on the key mission objective above all else.

Yet something in his heart was stopping him from thinking of Rebecca as a mere “hostage” or “objective.” Rebecca was different. Somehow. Keeping her safe mattered to him. But he didn’t have time to stand around asking himself how or why. If she didn’t move soon, he’d have no choice but to treat her like any other uncooperative hostage he was trying to rescue, which was something he really didn’t want to have to do.

Aw, come on, Rebecca! Until you move I won’t be able to get us out of this!

Zack tilted his head toward Rebecca but kept his eyes trained on the gunmen.

“Hurry up,” he hissed.

Ivan raised an eyebrow.

Lord, he prayed, help her understand. I can’t keep stalling these men forever.

“Look, please, don’t make this any harder than it needs to be,” Zack said, sharply. “You think I don’t remember how clumsy you were? Like I said, you’d take two steps onto the martial arts mats, trip and you would wipe out on your face. Just go around to the side of the van and get out of my way. Now! You don’t want them to tie you up or drag you off kicking and screaming, now do ya?”

Rebecca spun on her heels—

Thank You, God!

She sprinted hard into the woods.

No!