Operation Summer Storm (21 page)

Del swore under his breath, and Summer tugged on Tate’s shirt from behind him. “I have money,” she whispered. “I’ve stashed forty grand, U.S.—how long will that get us?”

Tate hesitated, not moving a muscle to acknowledge her offer. “How much,” he finally spat out at Duffy with a grating dislike. After a noisy discussion, they settled on an amount that was enough to tolerate their presence, and still leave Summer with some cash. Someone shut off the blinding light, to be replaced by a circle of headlights on low beam.

Summer caught a glimpse of the rather scruffy looking individuals sitting in three army jeeps. She counted fifteen, and hoped to God Tate knew what he was doing trusting their lives to these men. They did not inspire a great deal of confidence. Taking her hand, Tate dragged her back to the shed where they’d dumped their gear. He opened his pack and pulled out her small bundle of belongings.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Summer?” he asked with a deep sigh.

She gave a small, frightened chuckle, “Do you want to go back out there and tell them you’ve changed your mind?” she dared. “Tate I took out this money for you to save my sister. I transferred what you needed before we went to Cambodia—but I still had the cash for emergencies—I would have gladly paid it, and still been in your debt. If paying those…people—” she said choosing her words carefully, “is the only way we’re going to stay alive, then I think it’s money well spent, don’t you?”

He looked at her thoughtfully before handing her the wrapped parcel containing her wallet and the money she’d wrapped and hidden in her luggage. Reluctantly he took the checks from her—counting out what he needed and handing her back the remainder.

“Hide this,” he told her before disappearing around the corner to take the money to the men waiting in their vehicles. Within minutes he was back, and they picked up their Spartan gear and trudged out to follow Tate back to the waiting vehicles.

The man, who had been shouting earlier—Duffy, stood beside the jeep watching them with a smug grin. He appeared to like the sudden advantage he seemed to have over these men. Animosity, hang heavily in the air from both sides.

She wondered what lay in the past, between these two groups of men, thinking she would have to ask Tate about it later, at the moment, she was more concerned by the leering looks she was receiving, as she came into the line of sight.

“Who have we got here?” he asked with a slight accent, which, she thought could be Spanish. He seemed dark enough to pass for a Spaniard although it could be simply a trick of the light. He was dressed in dirty jeans and a worn T-shirt that had definitely seen better days.

Summer repressed a shiver of disgust, as the man undressed her with his beady little eyes. She held his gaze defiantly for as long as she could before he smirked and jabbed the man next to him in the ribs, saying something Summer couldn’t understand. Although from the way Tate tensed beside her—she guessed it was not something she wanted to hear.

Distracted by Tate’s response, she stored, yet another fascinating tidbit of information away. Tate was apparently bilingual.

“When you get tired of these boys, you come over to Duffy and I’ll show you what a real man looks like,” he said luridly, thrusting his hips at her and laughing.

“When I want a good laugh, I’ll be sure to do that,” she told him coolly, gaining a sideways, frown of warning from Tate before the man before her stopped laughing, and snarled something unintelligible at her.

“Let’s get out of here Duffy, I don’t like being out in the open like a sitting duck,” Del jumped in, from behind her.

She followed their lead and rounded the jeep they were nearest to. The snarling Duffy sat in the front and sent her evil looks through the rear view mirror Summer tried hard to ignore.

“Why don’t you try and piss him off a bit more,” Del murmured as he lent down to place his gun at his feet beside her. They were squashed into the back of the jeep close enough they did not have to speak very loud to be heard.

“Lay off Del,” Tate said.

“You did happen to notice we’re slightly, outnumbered here didn’t you sweetheart,” Del whispered.

“I know that I’m outnumbered by Neanderthals,” she whispered back harshly.

“Okay children—play nice,” Maloney interjected, from across the jeep under his breath.

Summer hung on to the bottom of the bench seat, in the back and concentrated on staying inside the bouncing vehicle, as it pitched and swayed it’s way along the bumpy dirt road and tried to think of pleasant thoughts, ignoring the annoyed look from Del across from her and the dangerous one from the rear view mirror. Rounding a bend the view before her sent a lurch of unease through her body. It looked like a prison. The tall fence, topped with rolled coils of barbed wire and the buildings inside the compound, dug into the ground and reinforced with bags of sand. Bunkers….what sort of place—short of a scene in a world war two movie, had bunkers for Pete’s sake?

“What is this place?” she whispered.

“Some place safe,” Tate assured her quietly.

Summer sent him a sideways look of complete horror. “Safe from whom—the Japanese Imperial force?”

“From here on in—do not speak,” Tate said quietly, but in a tone that left no doubt, he was completely serious.

Her gaze raked the compound, that loomed before them and shivered, it was too similar to her recent memory of the hostage camp back in Cambodia.

The jeep stopped and they all climbed out. Tate helped Summer down into a low bunker and followed her in. There were no beds, just mats on the packed dirt floor—so much for a comfortable bed, she thought dismally.

“Stay here and rest; we’ve got some business to handle then we’ll come back for you,” Tate said and dropped his pack at her feet. “There’s a ration pack in there if you’re hungry,” he told her.

She nodded, her eyes on the floor, not trusting herself to look him in the eye, least he see the mounting fear she knew was rising in them.

“Don’t leave the bunker,” he warned as he started to turn away; he stopped then turned back to face her. “You can talk now if you want,” he said wearily.

Try as she might, she couldn’t keep the worry from her eyes and she hated that frightened tears began to well in her eyes once more.

Tate leveled a look at her steadily, “Summer…” he said, then stopped, dropping the hand he’d ran through his hair in frustration, “Trust me, okay? I’m going to get this all sorted out,” he promised.

When she looked up at him and nodded, he fought the urge to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he couldn’t, not here. Here there were too many eyes watching and waiting for a chance to jump on a man’s slightest weakness.

Tate sighed, and then walked out of the bunker. He kicked himself all the way to the large building in the centre of the yard. If he’d had any other choice, he’d have taken her someplace else, but the days of unlimited choice were well and truly numbered.

The men after them were ex-government. Tréago, only hired the best. These were men with unlimited resources. They, on the other hand, had a handful of ammunition and four guns—useless, compared to the arsenal the men hunting them possessed—they were going to need help…

Duffy had a network and base camp strong enough to deal with anything the Ex Government boys could throw at them. They made their bargain, and negotiated their terms. By early sunrise, they had—for the mean time—found a safe place to rest.

The men returned to the bunker, and Summer scrambled up to her feet to find out what had gone on. After Tate outlined the situation, she looked at him with that frown she wore, when preparing to argue and Tate sighed—he really didn’t need another fight just now.

“How can we trust them?”

“Because…damn it woman, would you stop questioning everything I do? Just trust me, they won’t sell us out,” he snapped. “All we need to focus on here is the fact that for now, we don’t have to worry about Tréago’s men sneaking up behind us, for a while.”

“Tell me what happened that night, between you guys and Tréago. How did you manage to escape when the others didn’t?”

“It doesn’t concern you, Summer,” he told her in a tightly controlled tone.

“Ox, she’s involved now and she has a right to know. Just tell her,” Maloney put in quietly, from the sidelines, where they’d been listening to the exchange as unwilling spectators.

Summer’s gaze darted across the men’s faces, but each of them was watching Tate expectantly.

Tate flashed an angry glance toward her and she took a deep breath, as if fortifying herself against him.

“There were ten bodies…” she said, apparently recalling the notes in the file.

“They only found three…the rest were disintegrated in the explosion…the explosion, we only just managed to escape,” Tupper added.

She’d glanced over his notes and been impressed by the substantial list of skills these men had obtained, things that sounded dangerous enough to give her goose bumps just reading them. Things like, close quarters battle, survival evasion resistance and escape, logistics, communication, intelligence, and infantry weapons and tactics…Summer had no real knowledge about what this training meant—although she had a fair idea, and it was no wonder these men had been able to survive so well, out on their own.

“Why didn’t you just go to the authorities and tell them what happened?”

Tate shook his head and gave a humorless chuckle, “Because Tréago made sure he’d sewn us up. Without any evidence, the radio transmission for instance, there was nothing to say we didn’t steal those guns and weren’t selling them on the black-market,” he said.

“He’d even deposited fake transactions from an off-shore account into our bank accounts so that when they investigated, it backed up the theory we were dirty,” Tupper said, his jaw clenching tightly.

“How did Michael get all this evidence?” Summer asked, sitting down, feeling as though she’d just run a marathon.

“He’d been trailing along with us on assignment. He must have had some friends in high places because we didn’t do it often…Tréago mustn’t have known about it, or he would have made sure he died out there the same way, we were supposed to. He filmed the whole mission. It goes against everything Tréago testified to afterwards. He’s always claimed we inadvertently set off an explosion while attempting to hijack the armory and commandeer the helicopter. The footage shows what really happened.” Tate shrugged.

“Then how come they didn’t suspect him? Why were you guys the automatic suspects?”

“He was never a viable suspect, not when he’d been carefully plotting to make us the fall guys for weeks before the mission.”

No wonder they wanted the file so badly, she thought, feeling a wave of despair, wash through her. She’d waved it under their nose and used it to blackmail them. She felt ashamed and ill.

“How can you be sure Duffy and his friends, won’t sell you…us,” she corrected “—off to the highest bidder. I mean the man who’s after you is obviously desperate enough to offer them a hell of a lot more than what we’ve paid.”

“They won’t take his money.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because they made a deal.”

“They made a deal?” she said quietly. “They’re mercenaries Tate,” she said raising her voice—then closed her eyes, and struggled to get her anxiety under control. “Is it impossible, they won’t sell us out?”

“Yes Summer. They don’t back out on a deal. It’s what they do.”

“Silly me for thinking men, hired to kill, would have ethics,” she mumbled under her breath.

“We have ethics,” Tate told her in a voice as hard as steel.

Summer looked him in the eye, “Yes you do, but you’re not hired killers.”

“How many people do you think I’ve killed?” he asked quietly.

She couldn’t hold his steady gaze. He had a point. If you killed someone—you still killed someone. “You aren’t killing for the wrong reasons though.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. After this, I sometimes wonder if doing the Government’s bidding isn’t the same thing,” he said with a bone-weary tiredness that made her heart catch in despair.

Chapter Fifteen

Tate had seen the shock spread across Summer’s face as she listened to their tale of woe, and cringed at how dramatic it all sounded. They were Force Recon, trained to be the best of the best, toughest of the tough, and the missions they completed were never reported. They were known only within a very select, very small network of the corps, and it was just the way he liked it. Fanfare and limelight was for show ponies, and they could keep it. He liked to keep to the shadows. He had nothing to prove to anyone.

Maloney had been right, Summer was involved, thanks to him, and now she had become a part of the tangled, dangerous web, he lived in. He hadn’t been lying when he said they were safe here…for now, they’d spent most of the night, making sure of it. Here they had extra eyes and ears to keep watch, the defense they needed to remain one step ahead of Tréago.

That’s where Duffy and his men, dangerous as they were, came in. Duffy was a hired gun, infamous for his hatred of anything U.S. Government, especially U.S. Government. The fact that Alpha Two were U.S. Marine recon, was not lost on Duff—he’d just as soon see them dead as well, but his primary goal was to make money and if he could eliminate an old enemy—being Tréago the ex-CIA, who had been after him on and off for years—well all the better. Alpha Two were not on his hit list…this time around.