Mantis (K19 Security Solutions 4)

“Or?”

“More than the little bird’s wings will be clipped.”

Mantis set his phone down on the table in front of him. He didn’t need to bother telling the men seated around it what Ghafor demanded; they’d all heard what he said.

“I need a minute,” Mantis told them, and stalked through the sliding door to the patio.

All the miles he’d traveled, all the roads revenge had driven him down since that fateful eleventh day of September, had led him to where he was today.

It was his fault that Ghafor had Alegria. His fault that Dutch had been kidnapped in Germany. His fault that every K19 partner, other than Doc’s wife, was in Afghanistan, risking their lives.

He’d heard it said countless times that revenge was like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. In this case, the deal he’d made with Ghafor—to gain access to the final man he held personally responsible for his brother’s death—had resulted in the people he cared about being forced to drink his poison.

The night he left Alegria in the hospital in Boston, he’d known in his heart that he was prepared to do whatever it took to get Dutch free, including offering his life in exchange.

He would do the same now, except Ghafor didn’t want Mantis’ life; he wanted money—more money than he’d see in a thousand lifetimes.

Chapter 29

Dutch

They were less than fifty kilometers from Bagram Air Base when Doc’s phone vibrated again. Dutch could tell he really didn’t want to look at it, but he slowly picked it up and read the message on the screen.

“Goddammit. God, mother fucking, dammit.”

“What?” asked Razor from the front passenger seat.

“They’ve got Alegria.”

“Who does?” Dutch demanded.

“I don’t fucking know yet.”

Dutch watched as Doc punched a code into his phone and waited for someone to pick up his call.

He could overhear Gunner’s description of the scene at the Islamabad hotel as well as Alegria’s father’s report that an American woman had been part of the team that stormed the room and took his daughter.

“Where to, Doc?” Razor asked from the front seat.

“I want everyone back at the base as soon as they can get there.”

“But—”

“Save it,” Doc bellowed. “Everyone back at the base. We have one mission left, and that is to get Alegria back from whoever the mother fucker is who has her, and to get home. That’s it. Nothing else. Monk, pull the fuck over.”

Smart man, thought Dutch, when Monk pulled the vehicle to the side of the road. He’d known Doc Butler a long time, and he’d never seen him this angry. He probably had been; Dutch had just never seen him lose control of it.

Doc got out and opened the front passenger door of the vehicle.

“What?” asked Razor, who was sitting in it.

“You and Dutch start working on a profile for Kilbourne. Let’s figure out exactly whose side she’s on.”

Dutch had spent the last few days turning that exact question over and over in his head and thinking through every detail of the time they’d been together—before he dumped her for Alegria.

Every time he thought back on that time of his life, he cringed. Had she been more serious about him than he was about her and he just hadn’t seen it?

Because of it, had she set him up for easy recapture by Safi out of revenge? And now, had she orchestrated Alegria’s kidnapping out of the same revenge?