Free Fall (Elite Force 4)

With her sitting so close, he found himself thinking about her tearful, angry request during their last fight. Really thinking, even though it made his gut knot. The engine slowed again, jerking as the engines shifted upward like a helicopter again. Landing. Time to think was over.

Before he could gather his scrambled thoughts, the back hatch opened again. The bright sun swelled inside, stinging his eyes. He blinked, seeing the hangar that held their command center, the CIA dudes and SEALs waiting. He was back where he started.

Except now the welcoming crew included more than the CIA dudes and the SEALs. His PJ team stood with them—Brick, Data, and Fang out front.

And in that moment, Jose was the thirteen-year-old kid again, sitting in front of the TV watching an Air Force recruiting commercial. He saw what had gotten him out of his screwed-up home, away from his family. He saw what had pulled him up again after he’d surrendered to the family legacy and become an alcoholic.

And he knew without question there wasn’t a middle ground for him with Stella. All he had was this rapidly closing window of time with her.

***

Stella watched the clock as the somewhat nerdy-looking Mr. Brown questioned the teenage boy, while hard-ass Mr. Smith observed from a corner. Of course, the geek thing was Brown’s act. His specialty? Martial arts, anything from Krav Maga to a black belt in karate. His unassuming appearance—five foot seven, wiry, and wearing glasses he didn’t need—had caught more than one person off guard in the field.

Would it work with the teenager?

They’d been placed in the small office in the hangar, a ten-by-ten coffee break area now being used as an interrogation room. She would be debriefed later. But for now—so far as the kid knew—she was just a freed prisoner who’d identified him as one of her captors and was listening in to verify what he said.

The second she’d seen him charging toward the CV-22, she’d recognized him. She’d noticed the kid a couple of times. Every person and every second of her captivity was catalogued in her photographic memory. The teenager had looked a helluva lot more fearsome at the compound, holding a gun and guarding his corner of the camp.

When she’d seen him running toward her, her gut had cramped with the fear she’d barely let herself feel while she was held captive. And before she could think, her instincts as a field agent went into high gear and she had Jose’s gun in her hands.

The whole ride back to base, she’d felt Jose’s eyes on her, felt his questions.

Felt the draw to be with him.

But until she had a few answers of her own, she couldn’t risk even talking to Jose. Sorting out the tangled mess of emotions inside of her would be tough enough on a calm day.

Sorting through them right now with an interrogation to get through was impossible. So the best thing she could do? Finish this interview with the teenager as quickly as possible so she could use what little time she had left with Jose to find some closure. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life feeling like her heart was cut out of her chest every time something reminded her of him.

The teen—he called himself Ajaya—cupped a canned cola with shaking hands and looked everywhere but into anyone’s eyes. “I lost my parents in an uprising when I was ten. I was sent to a school for orphans. The people who took me, they target boys like me, ones with no family.”

Mr. Brown didn’t even glance up from his iPad tablet as the kid poured out the heart-tugging story. “You speak English well. You must know the odds tell me that’s unusual for a child in your circumstances.”

“I had very good teachers at the orphan school.” He took a slurp of his drink. “I had hopes of working at the embassy. Of traveling. I did not expect to travel this way. I did not go with those men by choice.”

“How did they take you?” Still, the CIA agent didn’t show even a hint of sympathy, just total absorption in recording the information.

Mr. Brown played the distracted academic well. Meanwhile, Mr. Smith crossed his arms and tucked himself more tightly in the corner, watching, listening for the least hint of a lie. And that was also why she’d been allowed to listen in. She’d been in there. She had access to more of what went on. The teen’s eyes kept flicking to her, as if questioning why she was here, but he was wise enough not to ask.

Ajaya’s throat moved with another long swallow, his coffee-dark eyes deep wells of fear. “They pretended to be maintenance people there to fix the electricity. They made me unconscious and took me away. Next I woke up in the back of their van. But they did not work alone. They had help.”

Finally, Mr. Smith straightened, weathered creases in his face digging deeper as he frowned and looked directly into the young man’s eyes. “Help? From who?”

“From one of my teachers at the orphan school where I lived.”

***

Annie Johnson closed and locked the door to her classroom.

Most people lived for the end of the workday. Not her. She only came alive during those eight hours she spent at her desk and in front of the board—with her students. But today had been especially rough, with her eyes drawn back to those two empty desks, knowing more of her students had been snatched away by pirates and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do about it.

She swept the cloth up over her head and started for the door, fighting back the frustration. The hallway here at the orphan school didn’t change year after year. Not really. The same bulletin boards, just different artwork and poems, same teenage themes.

Same threats.

Dropping her keys into her pocket, Annie hitched her book satchel over her shoulder and started down the dimly lit hallway. She’d come here to teach believing that she was smarter than the rest of the people on staff. Beyond her two advanced degrees, she’d traveled the world.

How arrogant she’d been.