Protecting Caroline (SEAL of Protection Book 1) (16 page)

She didn’t.

Abe paced behind
the men. He couldn’t watch anymore. Those bastards. How could they do that to a
woman? To their Ice? Why didn’t she just tell him and save herself some agony?

They watched as
the man yelling at Caroline stopped asking her what she’d done and looked up
toward the camera. Then he lost it, ranting at the SEALs, at how they all
thought they were God’s gift to the world and thought they were invincible.

The man continued
to berate and hit at Caroline, but they heard a disembodied voice come from
behind the camera. They hadn’t realized someone else was in the room. They
could only see the three men taking turns beating Caroline. “How does it feel
watching my interrogation? I’m finding it quite…entertaining.” The chuckle that
followed the flat statement was horrifying. It suddenly became clear.

“That’s the
traitor,” Benny said, hate clear in his tone. “That’s the bastard that’s behind
everything.”

Before anyone
else could say anything, the camera was jostled and the team realized the
mysterious traitor was now holding the camera.

The SEALs all
watched as the unknown man carried the camera close to Caroline. He zoomed in
on her face, speaking directly to the SEALs the entire time.

“How does it
feel to watch them beat her? How does it feel to see the blood falling from her
skull, knowing I ordered it?” He zoomed in on her wrists. “Look at how she’s
struggled trying to get away from me. The zip ties are cutting off her circulation.
See how her fingers are turning blue?”

He laughed then—an
evil nasty laugh that sliced through Wolf and his team.

The man stood
back so they had a wide angle view of Caroline in the chair. They all saw the
other men come up on either side of her.

“Jesus no,” Wolf
moaned. He couldn’t take this anymore. He turned away from the computer screen.
They were going to kill her and he couldn’t watch. He wouldn’t stop the video
again, but he’d be damned if he watched his love die. Then, changing his mind
he abruptly turned back to the screen. No, he wanted to watch. He needed the
motivation to keep him going after she was gone. He needed a reason to find
every one of the men, and every one of the terrorists in their organization and
make them pay.

The team watched
as one of the men struck out and knocked her over, still tied to the chair. She
fell hard on her side. All the men could hear her grunt as her head bounced off
the hard floor as she landed.

The man in
charge just laughed in the background

“That was awesome.
I’m surprised her head didn’t split open.” The camera came close to Caroline’s
face again. The disembodied voice sounded again. “You want to tell me what I
want to know yet, babe?” he taunted her.

“I’ll tell you,”
Caroline mumbled while bloody saliva dripped from her battered and torn lips.

Abe moaned,
actually moaned. “No, Jesus, don’t.” None of them knew if it was better if she
kept her mouth shut or if she told this demented man what he thought he needed
to know. Who knew what he’d do after she told him how she knew the ice was
drugged.

Wolf leaned
toward the screen as if he could will the man behind the camera to make a
mistake, to step in front of the video camera just once. All he needed was one
split second. Tex would do his magic and have a photo to them in no time if
that happened. He saw Caroline spit some blood out of her mouth and try to lift
her head off the ground. She still lay on her side, suspended in the chair she
was tied to.

She sounded
horrible. Her words were slurred and she mumbled her words. “You want to know
what happened, asshole?”

At the man’s
affirmative grunt, she continued, “Well fuck you. You and your army of
gull
ible
terrorists can get back on whatever party boat you sailed here on and go to
hell!” She’d looked right at the camera while saying it, not at the man
standing next to her, not into the eyes of the man holding the camera. It was
as if she looked right into the eyes of each of the SEAL team members as she’d
spoken. There was silence in the room for a moment, then the man behind the
camera nonchalantly commented, “Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Your bitch isn’t very bright is
she, Wolf? We’ll be in touch.” And the video went dark.

Wolf tried to
hold it together. He was losing it. They had nothing. Nothing. He growled and
kicked at a stool. It went flying across the room.

In the silence
of the room Abe unexpectantly urged, “Play that last part again.” 

Wolf turned to
him incredulously. “You want to watch that shit again? What the
fuck,
Abe?”

Abe wasn’t listening.
He reached over Wolf, ignoring his incredulous question and grabbed the mouse,
not waiting for him to do what he’d asked. They watched Caroline being kicked
and watched her stare eerily at the camera again and heard her recorded voice
say,
“Well fuck you. You and your army of gullible terrorists can get back
on whatever party boat you sailed here on and go to hell!”

Abe played it
again. Then again. Wolf was about to beat the hell out of his teammate. He
couldn’t watch it one more time without losing his shit. He couldn’t hear her
slurred words full of pain. He felt like his heart was breaking.

Abe turned to
his teammates. “Did you catch that?”

“Hell yeah,”
Dude said urgently. “It’s not a lot to go on, but it’s a start.”

Wolf shook his
head and stared at his teammates. What was he missing? What had Dude and Abe
caught that he’d missed? As much as he didn’t want to see Caroline’s battered
and bruised face or hear her tortured voice one more time, he had to hear it
for himself.

“Well fuck you.
You and your army of gullible terrorists can get back on whatever party boat
you sailed here on and go to hell!”

Suddenly he got
it. Caroline was giving them clues. Gulls and party boats….she had to be
somewhere near the ocean. She’d looked right at them and willed them to
understand. It wasn’t a lot to go on, as Norfolk was an ocean port, but the
party boat remark had to mean
something
. Caroline knew the difference
between the Navy ships, the container ships, and pleasure boats. They’d even
had a conversation when they’d toured the base about the difference between a
ship and a boat. She’d teased him about not wanting his manly SEAL ship to be
called a boat. Her wording to them couldn’t have been coincidence.

The men all got
up from the table. Cookie was already on the phone with their commander, and
Abe was on the phone with Tex. They’d find her, they had to.

Wolf thought of
his woman. He loved her. Caroline was his everything. She was amazing and if he
lost her he didn’t know what he’d do. She could be dead right now, they
could’ve killed her after they shut off the video, but he didn’t think so.

Wolf thought
again about how the guy behind the camera called him by his name. He knew him,
or at least knew
of
him. They had to figure out who he was and fast.
Right now Caroline was his main concern, but Wolf knew they had to stop the
leak as a matter of National Security. The man would want to keep Caroline
alive to taunt him. Wolf didn’t know how he knew that, but if they hadn’t
killed her on the video, she was still alive. They were going to use her
somehow; they just had to get to her before that happened.

“Hang on, Ice.
We’re coming for you.” Wolf hoped his fervent words somehow made it through the
cosmos into her heart.

Caroline didn’t
open her eyes when she heard the men return to the room. They hadn’t bothered
putting her upright after turning off the video camera earlier, so all she
could do was lie on the floor and concentrate on breathing.

She didn’t think
she could take much more of the attacks. She was having trouble breathing; she
thought she most likely had a broken or cracked rib or two from the last beating
she’d received. She wondered if Matthew and the others had gotten her message.
She didn’t think it was all that clever or helpful, but maybe they could figure
it out.

While she’d been
waiting for the men to come back and start beating on her again, she’d realized
the sounds she was hearing outside weren’t sounds like she heard on the Naval
docks when Matthew had taken her there. She also didn’t hear anything like
she’d seen at the shipping yard. So she could only conclude she was at some
smaller dock. That’s why she’d made she’d said ‘boat’ and not ‘ship.’ She knew
Matthew would understand, she’d joked with him about living on a boat and he’d
made sure to correct her. He’d been on a ship, not a boat. It was a long shot,
but she had to try to give them something.

She couldn’t
think straight anymore. They hadn’t given her anything to eat or drink. Her
mouth was beyond dry and she’d kill for a drink of water. She supposed it was
too much bother to feed people you were going to kill. She figured if Matthew
and his team didn’t find her
really
soon, it wasn’t going to matter
anyway.  

She felt two men
pick up the chair she was strapped to and set it upright again. Caroline sagged
against the ropes binding her to the chair. Ouch. She felt the ropes being
loosened and she almost fell back onto the floor. Her wrists were still zip-tied
to the armrests so she wasn’t going anywhere. She didn’t try to move, she couldn’t
anymore. She was all out of fight. She pried her swollen eyes apart and looked at
the man crouched in front of her. It was the dirty smelly one that had first
threatened her with rape. The polished man in the three piece suit wasn’t
anywhere she could see.

“Not so arrogant
now are you, bitch?” he spat, then continued as if they were having a real
conversation. “It really is a pity you know. My men really wanted to take their
turn with you, but they aren’t interested anymore. They wanted to see if you
were as much of a spitfire while being taken from behind as you would be when
they raped you on your back.”

Caroline didn’t
even flinch. Nothing this man could say to her would faze her anymore. She knew
he probably wasn’t kidding, but all she cared about was how he was going to
kill her. She knew it’d be unpleasant and she was trying to brace herself for
any possibility. She tuned him out thinking about whether having her throat
slashed open would hurt.

The man
continued to talk while one of his men shoved a pair of scissors under one zip
tie on her wrist to cut it off. Caroline gasped at the pain that tore through
her, but she refused to cry out. She knew they were being extra brutal with her
just to see if they could get her to beg them. She tried to pay attention to
the smelly man as the other zip tie was cut off cruelly.

“It’s too bad
you wouldn’t cooperate with us. We’ll still succeed without you. I’ll figure
out what tipped you off. I’m done with this. He’s done with you. I’ll be sure
to tell your boyfriend how pathetic you were. We’re going to go for a little
boat ride…I’ll give you one more chance…”

When she looked
away from him, refusing to consider telling him anything, he grunted and stood
up. He motioned to one of his men and he came forward, leaned down and hauled
her over his shoulder. Caroline screamed out in pain. Agony shot through her
body. The ribs she’d
thought
might be broken, she now knew were. The
pain shooting up from her ribs was almost unbearable. She gasped, it was the
worst pain she’d ever felt in her entire life. She wished she could pass out.

She’d watched
television in the past and felt sorry for women who’d been beaten by their
boyfriends or husbands, but she’d never really thought about the pain they went
through. She’d seen their black eyes and heard them say how much it hurt, but
until you experienced it first-hand there was no way to describe the feeling.

Caroline wished
with all her heart Matthew was here. She knew it was irrational and impossible,
but she wanted him. She’d never been the type of person to rely on a man, but
God, she’d do anything for him to hold her and tell her everything would be all
right. He’d know what to do.

She would’ve cried
if she had it in her, but all she could do was try to hold on to the man who
was carrying her and try to breathe shallow careful breaths. With her luck he’d
drop her just to laugh at her reaction. She shut her eyes. God, would this ever
end?

* * *

Wolf watched the
warehouse closely. They’d lucked out. Tex had sent out word to be on the
lookout for suspicious activity to his vast network of military members,
private investigators, cops, and hackers. After only half an hour, one of his contacts
had mentioned there’d been some activity at a warehouse near where his boat was
docked in the old section of Norfolk. There was a large marina nearby that had
boats that cost up to a million dollars right alongside small fishing vessels.

Tex had taken
that lead and followed up with it himself, finding cell phone pings and other
electronic activity coming from the area. He’d hacked into a security camera on
the dock and had confirmed that at least one of the men that had been beating
Caroline on the video was in the area.

Wolf’s team headed
out there immediately, set up a perimeter, and watched for a while. They saw two
of the men from the video enter the building. This was it. Wolf wanted to race
in and snatch Caroline away from the lunatics, but he knew he couldn’t. He had
to let this play out. He’d actually put Abe in charge of the mission because he
knew there was no way he could be objective. This was Caroline,
his
Ice,
they were going to rescue.

The team had
been on many rescue missions together in the past, and they’d most likely go on
many more in the future, but they all understood at a gut level it was
different this time. They were essentially rescuing one of their own. Ice
belonged to Wolf; they all knew it and they all were one hundred percent
devoted to getting her back alive. Not one of them was unaffected by watching
her bravery on the tape.

They’d been
trained at how to deal with interrogation tactics and how to mitigate the
effects of a beating. Hell, their time in basic training and BUD/S was more
torture than most people would ever have to face. They’d had years of
experience. Caroline had none, yet she’d taken what they’d done to her better
than any civilian. She was innocent as anyone else they’d ever met. She was
theirs. She was Ice.

Abe had no
problems with being in charge. Wolf knew that he, out of all the rest of his
team, knew how much Caroline meant to him and how badly he wanted to get her
back safely as well. Abe had seen her bravery in person. While Cookie, Dude,
and Benny appreciated her bravery from watching the video and from what they’d
heard from the others, they didn’t
know
her yet. While it wasn’t “just”
a job to them, it was more personal for him and Abe.

They knew they
couldn’t just rush in. They had to wait and get the traitor behind the camera.
That was the only way this would end and Caroline could be free to live her
life. Wolf didn’t want to think of Caroline walking away from him, but he
wanted her to be able to live free of fear. This whole incident might make her
think twice about having anything to do with him. If he thought it was in her
best interest, he’d even push her away. But he wanted to her to live. He
needed
her to live.

He hadn’t
thought much past getting back from his mission and seeing Caroline again, but everything
that had happened in the short time they’d been back in the States had changed
his outlook, especially now that he’d held her in his arms for a few nights. He
didn’t want to let her go. He wouldn’t let her go if she showed even half the
interest in him that he had for her.

As the group
watched the warehouse, two men exited with Caroline thrown over one of their
shoulders. Wolf watched as she tried to prop herself up with her arms on the
guy’s back, but she was having trouble. It took Abe’s hand on his arm for him
to realize he’d been about to rush the men right then and there. It went against
every protective bone in his body to allow the men to carry her further and
further away from him and not do anything about it. He
knew
they had to
find the man behind the attempted hijacking of the plane, but knowing almost
wasn’t enough. They watched as the trio headed toward the boats lined up on the
dock on the other side.

Wolf and Abe
moved around the building silently. Wolf trusted Benny was still in position.
On a hunch, they’d set him up undercover. Hopefully the scumbags wouldn’t recognize
him from the cabin. No one knew if the terrorists had actually seen the other
members of the team or not, but they had to take the chance. Wolf figured even
if they did see Benny, they wouldn’t recognize him the way he was disguised.

Bennie’d dressed
as a fisherman who was cleaning his fish near the dock. They wanted to get as
much information as they could before they moved in. If the terrorists tried to
move Caroline, they wanted Benny there to listen and see what he could find
out. If they did transport her by water, they needed to know which boat she was
on. There were too many boats for them to have to guess where she was. They all
knew they wouldn’t get another chance to find her. This was it.

They watched as
the terrorists drew near to where Benny was.

“She had too
much to drink, huh?” Benny laughed, acting as if he’d had one too many beers
that day while fishing.

The man carrying
Caroline made sure to keep her head away from Benny. He smacked her ass and said,
“Yeah, something like that.” They didn’t stick around to chat, but kept
walking, keeping their eye on Benny.

Benny stood up
as they passed him. He made no move to interfere with their movements, knowing
he was out numbered, and essentially on a recon mission. After they passed he
sat back down and pretended to go back to work on his fish again.

Seeing the
fisherman do nothing suspicious, the men turned around and walked briskly
toward the dock.

Caroline lifted
her head to try to get the drunken fisherman to notice her. She had to make
someone see that this wasn’t normal, that she was hurt; she had to get some
message out. When she lifted her head, she saw the fisherman staring back at
her. She didn’t want anyone else drawn into this, but she had to do something. She
opened her mouth to say something; she didn’t know what, but something. But before
she could get anything out, they started around a corner of the dock.

Just before they
went around a small building she thought she saw the fisherman raise his hand.
It looked like he was trying to tell her something, but it was too late. They’d
turned the corner and he was out of sight. Caroline was too tired to cry. She’d
blown her last chance, she knew it. Her head drooped. She didn’t know how much
more she could take.

Benny watched as
the group disappeared around the corner. Shit. He’d tried to let Ice know they
were there, they were coming for her, but he’d waited too long and he didn’t
know if she knew what he’d been trying to tell her. He’d signaled the sign for “help
is coming,” but didn’t see any recognition in her eyes and no acknowledgement
of his signal.

Benny gathered
up the fish and the basket he’d been pretending to clean and walked seemingly
nonchalantly toward the warehouse. He had to meet up with his team and get their
speedboat ready. He’d seen the boat they were taking her to. One part of him
was glad the rescue was moving to the water. SEALs were generally always
prepared for any kind of fight, but there was nothing better than bringing a battle
to the water. It was what they were trained for.

* * *

Caroline barely
winced as she was thrown onto a seat on a small motor boat. She was beyond pain
at this point. Oh she still hurt, but her upcoming death was overcoming her
feelings of pain.

The men didn’t
spare her a glance as they readied the boat to leave. She thought about jumping
overboard, but didn’t think that would help her much. She knew she was a good
swimmer, but they’d just fish her right back out. Besides, she wasn’t sure how
well she’d fare in the water with her injuries. With her luck, the blood still
oozing from her wrists and head would attract a shark and she’d get eaten.

The men were
planning on continuing to torture her, she had no doubt. They didn’t want her
to die a nice, painless death. She decided she’d be better off biding her time
and waiting to see what they had planned. If she had the opportunity, maybe she
could slip overboard when they weren’t looking. Once they got out to sea she
had a better chance. It was getting dark and the lack of light would help her.
She just had to wait and try to be patient.