Page 4 of Call Sign: Thunder
She clutched her phone, glancing down to her lap, thinking quickly about whom she should call. She needed help. It wasn't exactly like she could call 911 as if she were at home, and calling her dad would do nothing to help here and now, and he'd only worry. Hell, maybe he'd even make her come home.
Her decision made, she found the contact for Kathy and pressed SEND before looking back up to assess the surroundings. As dangerous as the taxi driver seemed to her, she quickly realized he was the lessor of the evils. The cab sat stationary in the middle of the narrow street as men began to pour out of the buildings surrounding them as if a loud speaker had alerted them to her presence.
Allison's pulse was pounding in her ears, making it hard to hear Kathy's voicemail answering at the other end of the phone. The instructions to leave a message coincided with the first man testing the door next to Allison and finding it locked.
"Kathy, it's Allison. You were right. It was too dangerous. I tried to take a cab back to the dorm, but the driver took me to a dangerous part of town. Call the police. Report that I'm in trouble and need help. It is cab number 6296. It says the driver's name is Alejandro Nunes. There are men trying to get in the back of the cab. Oh God, there are more men coming over."
Allison stopped talking as she watched the cab driver lower his front driver's side window far enough to accept a big wad of cash wrapped in bands like they give out at the bank. She watched him fan out the thick stack of bills and then grin as he looked up to meet Allie's gaze in the rearview mirror. She saw the joy in his eyes as she heard the electric door locks click open.
"Call my father, Kathy! They are taking me. Oh God!"
Two men simultaneously grabbed her, one from the left and the other from the right. They ripped her iPhone from her ear, throwing it out of the car to the ground. She could hear what sounded like the crunch of glass as she assumed one of their cohorts crushed her phone against the pavement.
Allison fought with all her might, biting the forearm of the man who had her torso and kicking the man on the other side who was trying to subdue her flailing legs. Her efforts were ineffectual.
Things went from bad to worse once they had her out of the car. A third man pressed her body to the hot pavement with his knee to her chest while the man she'd been kicking succeeded in wrapping dirty nylon rope around her ankles, locking them together.
Allison opened her mouth to scream, and the man at her head took the opportunity to shove a dirty rag into her mouth to muffle her cries. Surely there had to be someone sympathetic nearby that would call for help. Women didn't get kidnapped in full view of a dozen people, did they?
Within a few long seconds, the men had completely subdued her, tied her, gagged her and left her to lie on the side of the street as the asshole cab driver took off with a squeal, anxious to put distance between himself and the crime in progress. The men appeared in no hurry at all. The tallest of them appeared to be in charge, taking a pocketknife out of a holder on his belt and opening the sharp blade.
Her life flashed before her eyes as he leaned down, knife in hand. This was it. She would die on a dirty street in Bogota, Colombia, at the age of twenty-one.
She should have been relieved when he used the sharp blade to cut the strap of her purse, pulling it away from her body and opening it to rummage through. He pulled her Coach wallet out and opened it. She prayed they took her cash. Hell they could have her credit cards too. Just rob her and let her go.
Time stood still while the hoodlum took his time looking through each nook and cranny of her wallet. It didn't make sense to her, at least not until he knelt next to her to speak softly to her as if he were her friend... speaking perfect English.
"Welcome to Colombia, Miss Benson. My colleagues and I would like to invite you to stay with us for awhile.”
Allison shook her head vehemently, struggling against her bonds. "Now, now. Is that any way to thank us for our hospitality?" His menacing brown eyes met her own and she saw pure evil. It was the last thing she saw before the drug covered cloth was pressed over her mouth and nose and the evil faded to black.
Chapter Three
ZACH
This was the part of the mission Zach hated the most. The waiting sucked. It wasn't exactly like he could play a game of Angry Birds on his phone or text his friends stationed back in North Carolina. He needed to watch his six.
He turned off the engine. He was used to the ringing that hummed through his ears from the helicopter engine. It took several minutes to grow accustomed to the sudden silence of the forest surrounding him. He took his headphones off and flipped the switch on the dash that allowed him to listen in on the comms with his squad, not that they'd be doing much talking for the next thirty minutes. They'd be on radio silence until they arrived at the compound.
The buzzing sound of insects replaced the buzz of his ears. The late summer heat was oppressive as the sounds of the active forest life infiltrated the cockpit of the small helicopter. He unlatched the triangle of a window next to him, pushing it out a few inches hoping to catch a breeze.
A familiar yearning for a cigarette hit him right on schedule. He'd given up the nasty habit over two years before and most of the time he didn't miss lighting up. The only times he truly missed his previous habit was when out drinking with his buddies and downtime like this while he waited to pick up the gang after they got to play Superman.
If they were Superman, what did that make him?
The snap of a nearby twig grabbed his full attention. The tall trees surrounding the slight clearing he was parked in now obscured what little moonlight they’d had on the flight in. He leaned down to grab his high-powered flashlight, shining it into the surrounding trees, looking for anything that could pose a danger to his location.
Not for the first time he was glad he wasn't afraid of the dark. The night was pitch black; the kind of dark that could hide the boogieman. He was about to turn off the light and chalk the sound up to a small animal when his narrow beam of light caught a flash of red moving about ten yards into the dense tree cover.
"Fuck." He threw the flashlight to the floor, reaching for the ignition button, bringing the engine to life. He had lifted his baby off the grassy ground when a half dozen men rushed out of the trees, headed for him with their weapons drawn, pointed his way.
Thunder didn't hesitate, lifting up quickly and pitching to the right as soon as the copter cleared the treetops. The sound of gunfire could be heard a split second before the bullets started ripping through the bottom of the helicopter. The sound of projectiles ricocheting threatened to deafen him in the confined space and he cursed taking his ear protection off.
Yeah, well if you hadn't you wouldn't have known how close they were.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he was out of range of the guerrillas he had left behind, but he wasn't foolish enough to think he was out of danger. He grabbed his comms unit and broke radio silence.
"Watch your six, Superman. Thunder taking fire. Headed to secondary location ahead of schedule. Copy?"
