Stranger Mine: a Base Branch novel

T
he unauthorized reproduction
or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/).

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

P
ublished
by MM Publishing LLC

Edited by Lacey Thacker

Cover Design by Deranged Doctor Designs

S
tranger Mine

All Rights Are Reserved. Copyright 2014 by Megan Mitcham

First electronic publication: October 2014

First print publication: October 2014

Digital ISBN: 978-1-941899-04-5

Print ISBN: 978-1-941899-05-2

T
o my Diamond Dolls
for welcoming, teaching, encouraging, and loving me and all things romance.

A
rock
-hard boner sure as shit made running difficult. Ryan hustled from the center-console Wellcraft, his boots creating thunder across the sun-bleached wood. He bounded from the dock over a three-foot sea wall. The tarmac sucked at his soles. He pushed harder across the private airfield to a waiting bird. The loaded plate carrier, battle belt, ruck, M4, and assorted weaponry strapped to every part of his body hugged him like an old friend. Its weight and the adrenaline triple shot of mission readiness provided the minuscule provocation his sex soldier needed to stand at attention and salute.

Curse Sloan Harris—McCord, now—to England and back. Why had he listened to her advice in the first place? “Kick your mommy’s hand-picked harem of socialites, along with her ass, to the curb, and find your own center,” his best friend said. Didn’t mean he had to comply with either directive. But screw it all, or none in his case, he’d heard the truth in her words.

The only thing he’d found the center of in the last year and a half was his palm. And ole righty didn’t do much to take the edge off his razor-sharp libido. Gritty wind hurled from the
whooshing
blades. It slapped his face and he squinted, seeing the open door of the copter through a thin slit and forest of lashes. The engine’s rumble filled his ears. He leaped into the gray belly of the Blackhawk and sat in the middle seat facing the cockpit. Though really, his rock-hard wood made the whole thing a cockpit. He shoved on the helmet from the seat to his left and livened the comm so he could communicate with the flight crew.

A deep voice crackled to life through the communication link. “Welcome aboard, sir. Call sign, please.”

“Sierra. Hotel. Echo. Papa. Hotel. Echo. Romeo. Delta. One. Nine. Nine. Six.” Ryan ticked the words off like they were tattooed on his tongue.

“Good deal,” the pilot said, “now Sammy here doesn’t have to shoot you.”

“That’d have put a real cramp in my day,” Ryan acknowledged.

“Mine too,” a soft and painfully feminine voice whispered in his ear.
Sammy, no doubt, now, was short for Samantha.
Through the gap between the seat and padded metal wall, Ryan spied the pilot’s small hand holstering a M1911. Her honeyed voice and pistol-pride for his own Brownings caused the blood to pulse in his dick. “I’d have been cleaning bits of you out of my baby for days,” she added with a pat to the aircraft’s panel. The throb ebbed, but not the swelling.

He laughed and focused too much attention on not strangling his vital organ with the harness and buckle. “Ready when you are.”

“Whirlybird ready,” the co-pilot said.

“Sit back, relax, and we’ll have you to the drop at 2100. Hope you like to feel the sea spray, ’cause we’re flying low,” Sammy purred.

Relax? Right. If anyone looked at his trip itinerary—Cabo San Lucas, beachfront villa, and saltwater fishing boat rentals—they’d assume he’d come for pleasure. The hum of the rotors shifted and steady vibrations jiggled his ass as the Hawk lifted off the tarmac. Dust danced in whipping funnels around them. Despite his fake itinerary and ragging hard-on, this trip was all business.

Ryan shifted his hips in an effort to alleviate the ache in his groin. When Sloan’s words slammed him in the gut, he should have moved out of his parent’s city condo and gotten a place of his own. But no. Instead he swore off the women his mother insisted on setting him up with on a bi-weekly basis.

Dumb as dirt, Noble.

He’d cowed to his mother’s wishes since his life altering, unhappy tenth birthday. What person wouldn’t when they saw their world’s anchor, the strongest person they’d ever known, break before their eyes? Especially if he were the cause of the pain.

Any mention of his moving out and the woman shed tears like the conduit for all water sources on the planet. While they zipped over the great blue Pacific, Ryan’s gut twisted in perfect sailor’s knots just thinking about the impending conversation. He stretched his legs out and focused on the positive. His cock had shriveled like the coward he was.

The usual lightness that accompanied Ryan while in the air never came. Not even buzzing the rod holders of the rented boat stirred him. The sky was blotted in shades of red and orange by the setting sun, but it could have been black for all he cared. At some point he’d have to rip away the security blanket he provided his mother. And really, when he wasn’t lying to himself—something he’d become very adept at—he admitted his fear of losing the protection she provided him. The fake life he’d lead, like the fake itinerary, looked good from the outside and hid his inadequacies well.

The gray face, black numbers and hands on Ryan’s watch read 1930. Time to get out of his head and into the mission. He pulled the topographical map and satellite pictures from the pocket on his left thigh and smoothed them over his lap. With the sun snuggling the horizon, Ryan deciphered the rings, grid, and numbers by the green glow of the instruments.

“Fucking desert,” he mumbled.

“At least it’s not summer, man,” the co-pilot chimed. “You’d bake to death within an hour of Sonoran heat exposure.”

Sammy guffawed. “Yeah. You’ll be as uncomfortable as shit in the near freezing temperatures, especially if it rains, but you won’t die. Not from the elements. Huh, Mike?”

“Hell no,” Mike cried. “You screw with El Chapo, he’ll make soup out of your hide and you’ll die listening to the sound of your own screams.”

“Well, that’s comforting,” Ryan quipped.

“I’m serious, man. You’re crazy to do anything in Mexico. These cartels don’t fuck around. You screw with their operation, shit, you even think about it, you get dead. And Sinaloa is one of the worst.” The pilot rattled on, fear quavering his voice as he recounted the horror stories he’d heard from his years flying over the embattled country.

America’s greed for the forbidden and an armload of Mexican men’s hunger for power and prosperity, both unconcerned about the cost of their addictions, fueled the drug and sex-slave trade that funneled from the southern border into the States. The gruesome images playing in Ryan’s head weren’t some battlefield hearsay, but knowledge gained from the ground over the last year of bone-grinding work. All of which was set to culminate this February night with simultaneous hits across the cartel leader’s key compounds.

By sunrise the next day the Mexican government would miraculously have “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera in custody. And several of his drug and human-trafficking facilities would be burned to cinder. If everything went according to plan.

H
eat radiated
up the collar of Ryan’s desert-brush BDU’s, chasing away the chill of the night air. Since Commander Tucker had planned the mission, the moon hid behind a thick layer of clouds. The veil obscured his and the other teams’ trek in cavernous dark. With no artificial lights for twenty miles or more to the northwest in Caborca and the same southeast in Hermosillo, Ryan saw the landscape in shades of gray through the single lens of the thermal imagery monocular strapped to his head.

Low bracken scraped his pant legs and threatened to entangle his boots for the twelve miles. He maintained a brisk jog, shoving the sting in his lungs and calves to the back of his mind. Sandy soil finally gave way to the crunch of rocks under his thick soles and he slowed his pace to about six miles an hour. Only three miles left until he reached the crop of three buildings. The most treacherous three miles, as he’d nearly discovered the hard way.

The cartel liked their early warning systems oh so well. Ryan scowled at the first of thousands of anti-personnel land mines buffering the Sinaloa compound. On his first reconnaissance mission eight months ago, he’d stumbled upon the cylindrical death trap. He’d swear the thing had winked at him. His only saving grace had been its layer’s lazy dig job. The guy probably figured he was at the end of the boundary and if this one didn’t get the enemy, then one of the two-thousand-plus others would do the trick. In his previous three ventures, Ryan had mapped each of the bastards in the three-mile long, three-foot wide strip he now ran. He prayed he hadn’t missed any.

The covert sector of the United Nations, known as the Base Branch, existed on a plane so covert the Vice President of the United States of America didn’t even know it operated right under his nose. The agency employed the elite from across the globe and operated bases in Europe and the US. Their singular goal was maintaining and fostering peace. In order to keep peace, oftentimes they had to do the shit no one wanted to do, like crawl through the dirt scoping out explosives in the freezing desert temps.

Ryan and his cohorts maintained the quavering scale of peace with sharp efficiency. Even they, the elite’s elite, hadn’t expected booby traps and guards three miles away from the compound. Nothing if not quick studies, they discovered that when it came to protecting their investments, the Sinaloa cartel risked nada. They took precautions like a man with the only daughter on a pirate ship would—and then some.

Ryan dropped to his knees a mile away from his destination and steadied his breath. Two minutes passed. Then one more. The patrol was late. He didn’t have time for tardiness. Every team planned to radio mission-ready five minutes before go time. If even one didn’t call in, the mission and all their blood, sweat, and tears—well, he didn’t cry, but someone probably did—would be for naught.

When the rattle of the Jeep engine pierced the night, his decision to press on without taking out the first tier guards skidded to a halt. He ducked behind a small boulder in the middle of nowhere. With the foothills still another two miles away, it seemed the small mountain range ostracized the offending hunk of earth, chunking it from its brethren. Thank goodness. The headlights swung across the rock as it turned, following the horseshoe-shaped dirt road that didn’t host a mass of land mines.

Like every other time, the dusty vehicle stopped ten feet past the boulder. Only this time the driver didn’t exit. Neither did the two passengers. Ryan’s hair stood on end. He sheathed the KABAR he’d planned on using, flipped on his Base comm, and grabbed the M4 slung across his chest. The radio didn’t crackle. As it should, the line maintained silence. When bullet spray didn’t alight the world around him, he eased centimeter by precious centimeter until his monocular illuminated the open-top automobile.

Three occupants he’d previously dubbed with fitting nicknames tussled about the car. Big ’Un sat behind the wheel, body twisted and lurching as he bore his snarl onto Gnarly’s crater-marked face in the passenger seat. Big ’Un shoved Bitchy so hard in the back seat only the spare tire kept his body from toppling out. The engine muffled their curses, but couldn’t mute their gestures. Gnarly and Bitchy were pissed at Big ’Un about something. Their heads bobbed and index fingers shook like only a Latin mother’s could, or so he’d thought.

Sweat sheened Ryan’s brow, but his breath came in steady, even intervals. He dropped the rifle back to his chest and retrieved his gunmetal blade from the small of his back. Big ’Un busted his wide shoulders from the extra-medium opening, grabbed his assault rifle, waving it over his head, and continued bitching as he walked to the far end of the patrolled U.

Gnarly cut the engine and slammed his door, huffing off in the opposite direction of the first while ranting in his native tongue. “If he slips his dick inside her, the fucker is going to get it chopped off and the rest of us killed.”

“Screw you too. You make me ride in back like a child then leave me stuck here,” Bitchy bitched.

“Because you whine like a kid still pulling on his momma’s titty.” Gnarly’s words drifted off as his distance increased.

“You talk about my mother and I’ll kill you myself, Tomas.” Bitchy climbed over the rear metal door. The gravel crunched under his shoes, growing louder by the second. They stopped a few feet from the rock. “Stupid assholes. All of you. He knows we’re not supposed to touch the
Bronce
, only screw with her head. I don’t know what makes her special to Gabrone.”

Ryan crouched deeper and held his breath. Special to Émile Gabrone? The man known as Gabriel—because he kills those who cross him with the vengeance of the archangel—had no one in the world special to him. He killed his parents at the age of eighteen. Enslaved his sister in the sex trade by nineteen. By twenty, his rep preceded him wherever he went and earned him a place among El Chapo’s highest ranks.

So, who the hell was the Bronce, the Bronze, and why was she special to Gabrone? Ryan wanted to know more than Bitchy, but didn’t have time to find out.

Metal clinked on rock. The metal-on-metal whine of a zipper followed along with the unmistakable pittle pattern of free-flowing urine. The stench of ammonia confirmed it. With one fluid move, Ryan bolted around the rock. Bitchy’s pitiful face didn’t wrinkle in alarm until he was inches away and closing fast. He clamped the man’s forehead between his bicep and forearm, then wrenched it back, locking the lean man against his chest. He struck hard and fast. The blade entered the man’s neck just below his ear.

Death came quickly. Easily. Much more easily than the limp man in his arms had made it for others. More easily than he deserved. Ryan didn’t enjoy killing, but he liked ridding the world of monstrous people.

“What the fuck?” The whites of Gnarly’s eyes swelled as big as a boiled egg. His gun hung at his side as he struggled to comprehend what he saw in the murky dark.

Ryan didn’t hesitate. He released the corpse and knife from his grip. Every muscle in his body coiled and released as he sprang. He cleared two yards on adrenaline, conditioning, and training. While he was in the air, the man reached, reeling his gun from the long strap where it dangled. The knuckles of Ryan’s right fist connected with the man’s jaw before the muzzle of the rifle made it to half-mast. Dust puffed around Gnarly’s chambray shirt and khaki cargos as he hit the ground. Despite his size, the man’s neck snapped under Ryan’s well-placed hands after a firm twist.

He didn’t allow himself to dwell on the sickening crack of bone, or the rippling aftershocks it sent through the man’s skull, or the way it tingled his fingertips. He shucked his knife from Bitchy, cleaned it, and stole quietly along the clear path toward Big ’Un.

The beefy man’s pants hung around his ankles, but a bladder flush was the last thing on the guy’s mind. His rocking hips and rhythmically pumping forearm gave him away before his words did. “Puta chula mi verga. Rápido. Más fuerza. La mujer de bronce.”

It’d be nice to let him finish. But Ryan wasn’t in a particularly kind mood. The constant stream of dirty talk muted the minute sounds of his approach. He’d have forgone the assistance in stealth because the display flipped his gut. It paid to be aware of your surroundings and keep
me-time
private. The big man gave the least fight.

Three bodies down. Four more to go. Then
boom.
He’d break this link in the Sinaloa’s trafficking trade.

Crouched and hidden by night, Ryan sprinted like the devil dogged his heels. In the span of fourteen and a half football fields he reached the first building in the compound. He leaned against the metal exterior used for storing what the cartel called “cargo.” They were mostly women and girls at this location, but others ran the gamut in slave labor. Ryan tossed the monocular into an exterior pouch on his ruck and wiped the sweat from his brow. Silently, he dragged in deep, steady breaths. From the illumination of the rear porch light of the main building, Ryan checked the time. One minute until check-in, a.k.a. midnight. Talk about cutting it close.

He had exactly thirty minutes to exterminate the rest of the staff, set a rucksack full of explosives, and blow the joint. Before shoving him out the door, the pilot had told him, “Extraction at 0230. You’re not here, we blow you a peace sign to the winds and we’re outta here.” That gave him just enough time to haul ass over a live minefield and swan dive into the Hawk.

“Fantastic,” he whispered.

He understood the tight schedule. When running a simultaneous op, you had to run tandem time or run the risk of forewarning your targets. In Ryan’s case, if he stayed too long the full security force could fall on his head and do more than muss his already wild mop. This facility ran on a skeleton staff since the next shipment wasn’t due for two weeks. Plenty of time to cancel the round up when they discovered they didn’t have anyplace to put them. Ryan wiped the smile off his face and checked the time again. Midnight on the dot.

But not even static crackled the comm-link.

Ryan’s gaze scanned the area. Not a person in sight. The main house flashed like a pre-cut diamond among dirt. A fancy pad that didn’t belong in the middle of the desert. Truth be told, it didn’t belong anywhere. Too much everything. From the multi-level cascading arch, terracotta roof, and the six-bay garage to the perfectly manicured flowerbeds surrounding the mansion, it screamed Beverly Hills—not Sonoran Desert hills.

Ten seconds past midnight and still not a word. Apprehension niggled. He studied the circular drive of brick pavers at the back of the house, meeting the garage at the side, and snugging up to the makeshift jailhouse. From earlier visits he knew the front of the house also boasted a paved circular drive. It all made a fancy highway system with gravel walkways and bits of bright green grass between.

“Team Alpha go.” Khani’s voice sounded over the airwaves. Ryan released the breath he’d held on lock-down.

Khani Slaughter, his sometimes partner, sometimes head honcho, transferred from the UK division six months ago. She’d said the move was to stay close to her brother, Zeke, who’d taken a spec-ops job stateside, and to get back in the field. The move had given Commander Tucker some dependable back-up while he was away on business and gave him the option of vacation. Not that he’d have shit to do without the job. However, rumor had it she moved to avoid someone very specific.

Right now, the tall beauty was set to attack the biggest drug trafficking organization in Mexico’s history, the Sinaloa Federation, with a handful of elite warriors and an army behind them.

After the other four teams gave the go-ahead, Ryan gave his. “Zeta go.” And he went. Hard and fast.