Page 8 of Reclaimed (Hostage Rescue Team)

Strong hands grasped her bound feet and pulled. With her hands tied behind her, her arms were useless.

She twisted and kicked out, her bare feet hitting nothing but air. Ignoring her efforts, the man unceremoniously hauled her out of the back and tossed her over his shoulder. The top of his shoulder blade dug into her belly. She automatically arched away but he swatted the back of her head hard enough to stun her and continued walking.

He dumped her into the back of what she assumed was the truck she’d heard about, threw a heavy blanket over top of her and covered it with something crinkly and musty smelling.

An engine roared to life and the vehicle lurched away. After a minute the relatively smooth surface of the road gave way to something rougher. The tires bounced along the new terrain, jostling her with the jerky motion. The back of her head struck the metal bed she was lying on, making her curse and anger began to replace the fear.

No way was she just going to lie here and let them take her.

She tried to sit up but the man must have tied the tarp down over the bed because she didn’t have enough room to do it. After a minute she managed to struggle to her knees, her head bent forward at an awkward angle because of the tarp, but then something hard slammed into the middle of her back.

She cried out and sucked in a sharp breath, dropping to the bed of the truck once more. Pain radiated out from where she’d been hit and it took a minute for her to get her breath back. She was scraped and bruised from the ambush, but otherwise okay.

God, I can’t believe this is really happening.

One minute she’d been in the back of the SUV talking about the upcoming meeting with Jim and Mark. The next, bullets had hit the armored vehicle. Their security team had done what they could to get them out of there, but then the lead SUV had been blown up. In the confusion, the gunmen had attacked.

Somehow her security team had been caught unawares and then overwhelmed. One of them had dragged her out and tried to run her to safety but he’d been shot down within moments of exiting the vehicle. She’d grabbed for his weapon, intending to shoot whoever was firing at them but two men had swarmed her, yanking a hood over her and rendering her helpless before she could lift the weapon.

That was the last thing she’d seen. Even now she had no idea whether anyone else had survived.

The truck continued to bounce and lurch up the rough dirt road, and soon the engine took on a high-pitched whine, the driver shifting down to a lower gear as they climbed up into the hills. They’d driven for a while now, they had to be close to the border, and from the terrain she would guess they were somewhere to the north. From the swaying, back-and-forth movement, she knew they were taking a steep mountain road, probably heading for the Syrian border.

More dread coiled within her. She knew if they got across into Syria, the chances of her being rescued were minimal.

Sore from the blow to her back and afraid to move, she wasn’t sure how long she lay braced against the truck bed but eventually the vehicle slowed and made a left-hand turn. A minute after that it stopped and the engine shut off.

Every muscle in her body went rigid as she waited to see what would happen next.

Her heart rate kicked up as the truck’s door slammed. Someone yanked the tarp and blanket off her, but she was still blind because of the dark hood. She could hear another vehicle coming nearer, wondered if she would be put into that one and driven across the border, but her captor hauled her out and threw her over his shoulder.

“Put her in here,” a man ordered. “Hurry.”

Whoever was carrying her grunted as he slid her off him and dropped her to the ground. Her butt hit the hard dirt with enough force to jar her entire spine and make her teeth clack together but she didn’t dare make a sound.

Metal squealed to her right, the sound raking over her raw senses like sharp fingernails. A lock clanged into place.

Trapped. She was trapped inside something, had no idea where she was or what would happen to her.

Though she could guess, and her imagination kept calling up numerous atrocities that she’d reported about in her files. Every last one of them sent a shiver down her spine.

Muffled male voices reached her and she strained to hear what they were saying. Another door close by squeaked open, somewhere across from her.

One voice became crystal clear, a man speaking English. “Put me down, asshole! Put me—” The angry words ended with a lowoomph, as though the wind had been knocked out of him. But she recognized that voice.

She scrambled to her knees, faced the direction of the voice and called out, “Jim?”

“Summer?”

“Yes!” She swallowed back the urge to cry. Crying wasn’t going to help and she refused to let these assholes know how afraid she was. “Are you all right?” It was probably awful of her but she was so relieved to know she wasn’t in this alone.

“I’m…okay. I—” Another grunt, this one filled with pain. Inside the hood, she winced in sympathy. Then his voice came again, growing frantic. “No, leave her alone! Don’t you touch her!”

Ice slid through her veins as his meaning sank in. Someone was coming for her, probably to punish her for talking.

Shit, shit, shit…

She scuttled back against the rear of whatever room or cell she was in, until her spine pressed hard against what felt like a rock wall. Hard footsteps stalked toward her, making her pulse spike. They stopped directly in front of her, then something hard and heavy pelted her square in the chest, making her gasp and suck back a cry.

---