…

“We’re in Seligman Arizona,” Jack told his father.

…

“Ok, we’ll get rooms and then I’ll call you,” he said before he hung up the phone. 

“We’re going to get a hotel room.  We can call ahead to the hotel in Vegas to see if they show up there, but I’m concerned,” Jack confided in the others. 

***

“I don’t know.  It just cut off,” Nicole said to Amy as the Jeep rolled to the side of the road.  She tried to hit the horn or flash the high beams, but all the electrical systems in the Jeep were dead. 

“They’ll see we aren’t behind them in a moment and one of them will come get us in a few minutes,” Amy said confidently. 

A van coasted to a stop behind them.  Several men armed with military style weapons exited the back of the van and quickly approached the Jeep.  Amy and Nicole knew that trying to resist wasn’t going to work. 

Three minutes later they were locked in the back of the van and one of the kidnappers was driving the Jeep south from Ash Fork, Arizona on back roads.  The women were trying to keep track of the time in order to have some idea of how far they were being taken.  Both remained surprisingly calm.

“Amy, I don’t think they intend to hurt us right away.  I’m guessing they are taking us for ransom.  What do you think?”

“I agree, Nicole.  But if things start going poorly, are you ready to fight?”

“If that’s what we have to do.  In fact, if I think we have a chance to get away, we take it.  They haven’t let us see their faces.  That’s a good sign, though, right?”

After about thirty minutes, the road started to get bumpier and the van was moving more slowly.  A few minutes later they stopped.  Amy and Nicole could hear the men in the front of the van exit, but then they were left alone. 

“I heard another engine for a minute, but that wasn’t the Jeep.  That was bigger… like a pick-up truck,” Amy told Nicole. 

“Do you think they just left us here, alone?” Nicole responded as she tried to loosen the zip-tie on her wrist.

“I have a small pocketknife in my front pocket, Nicole.  Can you get to it?” Amy asked. 

Nicole wiggled around until her hands, which were secured behind her back were in front of her sister-in-law.  She worked at getting the small blade from Amy’s pocket.  “Do you always carry a knife?” she asked.

“Jonathan gave it to me.  And yes, I almost always carry it,” she said with a smile.  “Be prepared, you know?”

A few minutes later and Nicole had the knife from Amy’s pocket, and they were figuring out how to use it to cut the zip tie.  It took a few attempts… the plastic binding was tougher than either of them expected, and neither of them could see what they were doing with the knife.  Nicole dropped it once and they had to search for it in the dark van, using their hands, behind their backs.

“Geez, girl, that thing is sharp,” Nicole told her sister-in-law, “I thought I was gonna slice my wrist open,”

“Sorry.  Your brother is a little obsessive when it comes to knife blades.  I’ve never used it for more than opening mail.”

A few minutes later and both women were free from the zip ties on their wrists and ankles.  But they were still trapped inside the back of the van.  They couldn’t hear anyone outside, though, and felt like they’d been left alone. 

“Hopefully, that means that their plan was to get the ransom paid and then give Jonathan our location.  But I don’t know who is going to open that door next,” Amy said. 

The two young women sat in the back of the van, mostly in silence.  One or the other would drift off to sleep, but generally not for long. 

***

Jack snatched the phone off the cradle when it rang, “This is Jack,” he said into the handset.

…

“How much?”

…

“When?”

…

“Did you get any idea of where they are, Melody?”

…

“Look, I have it.  We can just pay it,” he told his friend.  “The money isn’t as important as my wife or my sister.”

…

“I’ll let them know.  When will they be here?”

…

“Thanks, Melody,” Jack said as he hung up the phone. 

It was approaching midnight when he filled in Rolf, Tim and Cara on what he’d just been told.  Melody had gotten the call at Jack’s parent’s house.  Amy and Nicole were being held for ransom.  They demanded ten million dollars in cash, or the women would die.  He had thirty-six hours. 

“Melody told me that Gunny is on the way with a team,” he said, mostly to Rolf.  “We’re going to get them back.”

As the team loaded up their vehicles into the modified C-130 Hercules, they knew this was going to be a tough run.  The guys all started joking as soon as they had their gear loaded.  It was their way to “pre-game” their actions. 

This was going to be unusual for a number of reasons.  Most of these guys had a personal stake in this mission, something that they seldom had.  And instead of being a “business trip” that they were going on, without telling their families, their families were gathered in Bobby’s barn.  They were on the living quarters side, where Bobby had set up a remote communications suite for Melody.

The Black Ops spec C-130 took off from Patrick Henry International Airport at four in the morning, local time.  They expected a seven-hour flight, and so their landing would be around eight in the morning, local time for the operational area.  Duke Smythe, callsign “Five” was at the controls.  Gino Bell, callsign “Two” was his unofficial co-pilot. 

Close to the expected seven hours later, Duke circled the proposed landing site.  It was supposed to have been prepped for them to land.  He expected it to be rough, though. 

“Strap in, Lad.  We’re coming in and I don’t know how the field is going to greet us.” Duke said over their coms to Ronny Torres, callsign “Three”.  The rest of the team had taken their exit from the craft a little closer to their target.  Duke had dropped them outside Santa Ana, Mexico.

The plane came in low over the agricultural field.  Duke did everything he could to set the plane down gently, but they were bounced violently around by the rough ground.  After a moment, the big cargo plane was on the ground. 

Duke, Gino and Ronny unstrapped the three buggies in the back of the plane.  They each jumped into the driver’s seat of one of the vehicles.  It was going to be a ten-mile run back to where the rest of the team would be beginning their assault at any moment. 

***

Gunny, callsign “One”, had his rifle set up on a hill overlooking the target villa, just over a mile away.  He was waiting for Bill’s inside man to step out and give the high sign.  Between Gunny and Bobby, callsign “Four”, and the villa was the rest of the team.  Ed Dixon, callsign “Omega” was with Bill Prince, callsign “Alpha.” They were crouched outside the gates of the villa.  A hundred yards behind them, the newest members of the team, Enrique “Ric” Espinoza, callsign “Seven”, and Patrick Willem, callsign “Six”, huddled to cover Alpha and Omega.  While they waited for One and Four. 

“Alpha, should I be seeing Sky walk out of the villa?” Gunny said into his coms as he noticed Tio Sky exit the front door of the villa into the enclosed courtyard.

“Affirmative, One.  Did he give the signal?”

“Still waiting, Alpha.”

Gunny patiently waited, watching through his scope, as Bobby lay on the ground next to him alternating between sweeping his binoculars around the villa and checking their location for threats.  If Sky gave him the signal, Gunny and Bobby had seven minutes to get down the hill, through the brush to Alpha’s position.  Duke, Gino and Ronny should get there just a few moments later.  Antonio Sky stepped out through the front door of the villa and wiped his hand across his forehead.

“I got the sign,” Gunny said into his radio.

He and Bobby took a few seconds to set their packs on their backs and start the scramble down the hill. 

“ETA, seven minutes, Alpha,” Bobby said to his coms. 

“Echo to Team,” Melody said from over two thousand miles away, “we have the bird in position.  I show twenty-three heat signatures inside the villa.  Repeat, twenty-three.  I have five outside the gate and two scrambling down the hill.  I show transport coming in approximately four miles out.”

Gunny and Bobby were still sixty seconds out when Bill sent a rocket propelled grenade into the gate of the villa.  He followed that with a second RPG that flew through the destroyed gate and impacted the front doors of the villa, leaving splinters, dust and a gaping maw where the door had been. 

The four men nearest the gate began their sprint inside, guns raised. 

“Echo to team, I have four hotspots down from the blasts.  There are still four hotspots between the gate and front door.  There are also eight hot spots that might be moving toward the door from inside the house.”

Ed was first through the gate, with the other three men closely following.  As soon as they cleared the gate, they fanned out to cover a forty-five-degree arc in front of them.  They dropped four hostiles immediately. 

“This is Omega, we have confirmed eight down.  Heading to the doors.”

“This is One, we are ten seconds behind you.  Passing your initial position.”

“Two, Three and Five are two miles out.  ETA, three minutes.”

“Alpha?” Antonio Sky shouted as he ran up behind the rest of the team. 

“Come on in Tio.  Watch over Six and Seven,” he said as he tossed the former NEA Agent an M16A2.  Tio nodded to the two newest team members. 

***

“Melody, are you ready for me to do my magic?” Dirk asked.

“Light ‘em up, Dirk,” Melody replied. 

He and Steve started working on their keyboards.  Dirk had designed a pair of “worm programs” that would follow the money from the cartel bank accounts, starting where the payments had been sent for the failed hits against Jack, Ric and Madi.  The first worm followed the money upstream until it stopped, and then released the second worm, which replicated itself and followed the trail back down through all the accounts that were connected to the main account. 

“We’re live,” Dirk stated. 

“I have the data coming in… everything.  Account numbers, names, balances, transaction histories.  Everything,” Steve shouted excitedly. 

“Do you have the names of people they are bribing in the Mexican government?” Melody asked.

“Oh, SHIT,” Steve said excitedly. 

“What’s up, Steve?” Melody asked. 

“We got names of people that look like they are getting bribes, all right.  And when we report this, we are gonna have a problem.” Melody rushed over to look at the printouts coming off the printer with Steve.  As she looked over his shoulder, she saw why he was freaking out. 

“Here’s the deal,” Bobby said calmly, “we already have your guys downstairs.  We know who they are, and they are going to prison.  You aren’t leaving this room a free man.  I don’t give a crap about your threats.  But before you do anything, think about this.  We are NOT the cops. 

“If you hurt that girl, I will put a bullet in your head.  After that, I’ll figure out who you are and who you held dear.  I will take out revenge on them.  Mother, sister, daughter, girlfriend… whatever.  THEY will suffer for your poor decisions.  And I will tell them exactly why, too.  They will know all about you.”

Ronny had moved back down the stairs and gotten the name of the kidnapper from the man that was still conscious downstairs.  He radioed it to Bobby. 

“Do you understand me, Thompson Walters?” Bobby finally asked. 

Hearing the intruder use his name shook his confidence to the core.  In the movies, the good guys always laid down their guns.  He thought that was some sort of unwritten rule.  He would be able to push the girl outside and get in a car and get away.  But these guys weren’t playing by the rules. 

“I want an exit,” Thompson Walters said to the man standing in front of him. 

“You drop the gun and let go of the girl, and you might be able to get out of here alive before the cops arrive.  Until you do that, you don’t have an exit unless you’re dead.”

Outside he could hear the helicopter setting down in the back yard, between the house and the barn. 

“What’s that?” the kidnapper yelled.

“That’s my ride.  Your time is about up,” Bobby replied.  Gino slipped from his spot just outside the door in the hallway into the room behind Bobby and moved off to his left, his rifle also raised and pointed at Walters. 

Walters looked around.  His decision was whether he would set the gun down or just shoot the girl, knowing he would die a moment later. 

“On second thought, I might not shoot to kill.  I might maim you.  If you pull the trigger, your gun hand will get a bullet before the echo dies.  After that, I will subdue you, roughly.  In the end, when the ambulance picks you up, you will have suffered multiple wounds and by the time you go to prison you will be a eunuch.  You are going to be a VERY popular man in prison, Thompson.  And I might still visit your family, just to let them know what kind of man you are,” Bobby said with a grin. 

Thompson Walters moved the gun away from the girl’s head.  As soon as he did, Gino Bell moved in and removed the gun from his hand, dropped him to the floor and zip tied his hands behind his back.  He pulled the zip ties as tight as he could and drew blood from both wrists of the kidnapper. 

Bobby rushed over to Tasha and removed her gag.  “You’re ok, Tasha.  We’re here to take you home.”  Then he cut off the bindings on her wrists.  As soon as she was free, she wrapped her arms around the man in front of her and started crying into his shoulder. 

Bobby scooped her up and started carrying her from the room, down the stairs, through the back door and outside to the waiting chopper.  Gunny and Gino did a final sweep to make sure they hadn’t left anything, while Ronny started checking the girl over for hidden injuries.  They knew that the police would be there any minute, and they didn’t want to be there when they arrived.  That would require too many explanations, and stealth was required for their continued success.

Gino jumped into the front and Gunny hopped into the back and slid the door closed. 

“Take it up, Five,” Gunny said into his radio. 

***

The helicopter set down on top of a high-rise in downtown Chicago.  Franklin Johnson walked over as the side door slid open.  His sixteen-year-old daughter, Tasha, jumped from the helicopter and ran to her father.  When she leapt into his arms, both were in tears.  His little girl was all he had left after her mother had passed away a few years before from cancer. 

Without a word, the chopper took off again and headed to a private airfield just south of Gary, Indiana.  They dropped off the helicopter and boarded their plane to head back to Virginia. 

“Bobby, you are a stone-cold badass,” Gino said as they settled into their seats.  “Man, you scared me, and I know you’re a big teddy-bear.”

“You were in his head, no doubt,” Gunny confirmed.  “He didn’t know how to react because you changed every rule he thought he had to go by.  Good work, my friend.”

“Thanks, guys,” he responded. 

“That bit about his Momma and his sister, dayum,” Ronny exclaimed, “if I didn’t know better, I’da thought you meant it.”

“I guess I missed the fun part.  I mean, I heard it on the radio, but the front row seats were likely better,” Duke chimed in, “but what I heard was epic.  You think they got away?”

“Nah,” Gunny said, “I think the police were only a couple of minutes out.  They’ll get a tip that the guys were involved in that kidnapping and the girl will be able to identify them.  Her father already knows to try to tamp down any conversation about us… and she wouldn’t be able to identify us, anyway.”

They continued to talk and laugh about the successful rescue until the plane set down at Patrick Henry Airport in Newport News, Virginia.  Then the group disembarked, packed their gear back into their various vehicles and headed home.  The after-action report would be tomorrow morning at 0900.

You can find You Don’t Know Jack on Amazon for Kindle for only $2.99. Here is a link.

“It’s now or never,” Gunny said into his radio, prompting both pairs of men to begin their trek forward.  If they could run, even with the weapons and gear, it would only take them about seventy-five seconds to cover the ground, but they couldn’t just stand up and sprint.  They needed some stealth if they hoped to get to the house without being noticed.  Instead of heading straight in, they spent as much time as they could keeping a screen in front of them. 

Four and a half minutes later Gunny was at the back door, Gino at the front.  “Ding, dong, Avon calling… Bitches,” Gino said into his radio as the charges went off removing the door from the frame and flinging it inward.  At exactly the same time, the rear door did the same thing. 

The guards downstairs were both stunned by the explosions.  The one in the kitchen, at the back of the house, was knocked unconscious as a large chunk of the door slammed into his head.  The guard in the living room stood up, but before he could pull out his gun, he saw the masked man that was first through the door had a rifle trained on his chest. 

Upstairs, Thompson Walters leapt from his bed and made straight for the room in which the girl was being held.  He unlocked the door and rushed over to where she had been sleeping on the floor.  It was obvious that he wasn’t going to be able to make a break for it.  Whoever had come through the door downstairs wasn’t going to let him run away, he thought, unless he had leverage.  His intent was to use the girl as a shield to get out of the house. 

Downstairs, both guards were secured with zip ties.  Gino wasn’t gentle at all with the man he’d taken.  He’d barely been able to breathe as Gino knelt with one knee almost on the back of his neck.  As Bobby cleared the rest of the downstairs area, Gunny called in Duke for their evac. 

“The girl must be upstairs, and there will be at least one more with her,” Bobby said as he took the lead on the stairs. 

“I’ve got two heat signatures to the left at the top of the stairs.  It looks like they are huddled together,” Ronny said into his radio before he headed up the stairs, bringing up the rear. 

“Roger that, Three,” Bobby replied.  At the top of the stairs he turned left.  Gino, right behind him, swept right just to make sure.  None of them expected it, but if they had the technology to mask heat signatures, the kidnappers might also. 

As Bobby approached the end of the hall, the last door was wide open and even before he got there, he could see the kidnapper holding the teenage girl in front of him as a human shield, holding his revolver to her head.

“Stop… or I’ll shoot her,” he yelled, frantically looking from man to man. 

Both rescue team members could see the girl was obviously scared out of her mind.  She sobbed loudly and screamed through her gag as her kidnapper manhandled her to keep the gun at her temple.  They could see the tears streaming down her cheeks and soaking into her gag.  It broke Bobby’s heart that she was going through this, and he could feel his anger welling up inside.

He stepped into the room with his M16A2 trained on the forehead of the man holding the gun.  Hitting him in the head would not be a problem, but if the kidnapper had a nervous twitch, the gun could go off and the girl could die.  That was not an acceptable outcome.  “What’s your name?” Bobby asked through gritted teeth.

“Put down your gun,” he yelled back.

“No,” Bobby replied flatly, “what’s your name?”

“Put down your gun, or I’ll kill her,” the man yelled again.

“And then what?  If you shoot her, you don’t have a shield anymore.  So, shooting her would be the worst thing to happen to you in your miserable life.”

“I mean it, man, I’ll kill her,” he repeated. 

Look for the rest of this chapter on Friday. On Wednesday, I’ll have a post about Gunny. In the meantime, if you like this excerpt, here is a link to the book on Amazon for Kindle.

A moment later, Ed came on the channel, “Same with Jack.  He got a call and Sharon said he tore out of the driveway.  I think everyone needs to go on alert.  I have contacted local PD and put an alert on his car.  Alpha, what car is Amy in?  I’ll get an alert on that, too.”

“1969 Camaro Z-28.  Dark green… Fathom.  Fathom Green.”

“Roger, Alpha.  We’ll find them,” Ed reiterated, as much for himself as for Bill.

“Three?  This is Two.  I’m on my way to pick you up.  I’ll be in the Blazer.  Give me 10 minutes.”

“Roger that, Two.  I’ll be ready to load up.”

***

Paul was pleased with himself.  It was almost too easy.  He’d been able to buy a tranquilizer gun from a veterinarian supply company.  That and the loaded darts had cost him ten thousand dollars, but he would be able to put both of them to sleep with one shot each.  And when he called and told each of them he’d grabbed the other, they both came running.  They obviously hadn’t called each other… they just reacted.  It was perfect. 

Now both were bagged and in the back of his Dad’s van, out cold.  They both seemed to have an ok pulse, so he probably was going to be able to give them a good lesson before he killed them.  Now he just had to get them to the beach.  It sucked that he had the van, but he could swap for the Bronco at the house.  He just hoped he didn’t have to deal with Candy.  He’d shoot her if she tried to stop him.  Right now, he thought he might even shoot his Dad if the old man tried to interfere. 

***

Ed keyed up his radio to the team, “Vehicles located.  They were at Murphy’s warehouse.  The door was open and there were no signs of a struggle, but also no signs of Amy, Jack or Paul Murphy.  I am certain he picked them up there, but I don’t know how.  We need to find him.  And it needs to be fast.  We don’t know what vehicle to look for, either, aside from the Bronco, BMW and the VW van.”

Four and Five had already decided to fly around looking for the VW Van.  That would be an unusual vehicle, and easy to spot from the air.  They were flying around between Southern Shores and Oregon Inlet, concentrating mostly on the residential areas near Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills.  They didn’t want to appear obvious, but they wanted to see as many driveways and parking lots as they could.  If the Murphy group, as they had started calling them, were paying attention, a chopper running a grid pattern over their neighborhood would tip them off.  For the bulk of the morning, the only time they weren’t in the air was when they were sitting on the ground at Dare County Regional Airport getting fuel.  The extra seat time is getting me a whole lot more comfortable flying this new bird, Duke thought to himself. 

***

There was a lot of discussion between Melody and Gunny about how to best be utilized.  They wanted to get involved in the search, but both felt that the beach house wasn’t out of play.

“Is the beach accessible from the north?” he asked.

“Technically… kind of,” she replied with a grimace.  “There are a few passes that exist for people to drive south from Sandbridge, in Virginia Beach.  But for the general public, no.”

“What if the general public was willing to shoot a gatekeeper?”

“Honestly, Will, I don’t know if there IS a gatekeeper.  There might just be a lock and a key.  Bolt cutters might be all the that’s needed.”

“Damn.  That means that if we leave, there is a chance Murphy could get behind us and back to the beach house.”

“Will, I don’t think those kids would leave that house alive if he gets them there.”

“Team, this is One.  Echo and I are staring at the beach house.  We want to get in the game, but if Murphy gets behind us, he would be free to act here.  Echo thinks that Candy and Missy will visit again before leaving.  Alpha, Omega, do you guys think we should head south and join the search?”

“Negative, One.  Stay put.  I trust Echo,” Ed said.  “You’ll know as soon as we get another whiff of them, and we’ll reconfigure then.”

Gunny felt helpless.  And he did NOT like feeling helpless.  He decided to go check out the state line and see if there were any obstacles on this end.  He’d seen the fence across the beach, and it looked as if it was designed more to stop the horses in the area from walking across the state line than anything else.  It kind of annoyed him… the horses had been here longer than either of the states had existed. 

The legends said that the horses had been left by Spanish Conquistadors when they were done with them.  That was almost five hundred years ago.  They had survived through adapting to their harsh environment.  They ate local plants and got the water they needed from that.  They had struggled through countless major hurricanes that wiped entire communities off the map.  The very shape of the Outer Banks had changed, inlets closing in one place and opening in another, dunes rising and falling.  Still, the horses wandered the beach and thrived.  When Sir Walter Raleigh’s Roanoke Island settlement was created, and then disappeared, the horses were here.  As hundreds of ships perished in the dangerous waters offshore, the horses were here.  When Orville and Wilbur Wright made their history changing flight just south of here and the horses were there watching.

Once upon a time, they had been military horses, ridden by men to accomplish the goals of their owners.  But now, they had reverted to wild.  And as Gunny walked along the beach to the state line, looking over and seeing a group of horses cresting the dune heading toward the beach, he stopped to look at them.  Oddly, the horses that had been pulled from the herd and pressed into service were once again gentle.  Not only that, but they were often used as trail horses for children because of their gentle nature.  There was even a Scout Troop that had been based on the Outer Banks, years ago, that required each of their Scouts to catch and ride one of the feral horses.  Yes, Will Grafton, Gunny, loved being around the Banker Horses, those proud descendants of Spanish Mustangs that had carried the Conquistadors all those years ago.  He wondered if he liked the horses because they made him think about himself.

Looking at the ugly fence made Gunny want to cut it down.  Who were the men that thought these horses didn’t belong on the other side of the line in the sand?  What gave them the right to tell these magnificent creatures, adapted perfectly to the land, that they were no longer welcome on the lands they had roamed since before the government even existed? 

The fence went out into the ocean, and then back over the dunes.  But upon examination, Gunny found that there indeed was a gate, and aside from a length of chain and a padlock, it could be swung wide and vehicles could pass.  There was rust on the hinges and the chain, but the sand had been cleared around the swing of the gate at some point in the recent past.  His guess was that the gate was kept clear and perhaps opened a few times each year for maintenance purposes by the wildlife refuge or state park to the north. 

All it would take to get through the gate is half a minute and bolt cutters.  It might stop the horses, but it wouldn’t stop anyone that was bent on getting past it.

He walked back to the beach house they referred to as “north 4 by 4 beach” or just north beach.  Maybe he would rustle up some breakfast for himself and Melody.  He thought he’d seen some eggs and bacon in the fridge. 

***

As dark approached, Paul pulled into the garage at the house in Kitty Hawk.  He unloaded the unconscious bodies of Amy and Jack and put them in the back of the Bronco.  It was barely after five, so he had almost seven hours before the plane departed.  He and Sean had packed the BMW and the VW van with things that were destined for the trip, including hiding the remaining cash in the two vehicles.  They were going to see if Tio would be able to help with converting cash, but even if he didn’t, they had close to eight million dollars that should be available in accounts, and another three million in cash.  The target was one million in cash. 

After getting things packed, he was ready to head out to the beach house.  Candy had insisted on coming.  She said that she needed to pack up a few things of hers and Missy’s from the house.  When they had last left the house, they didn’t know they were heading out long-term, or they would have prepared. 

Paul really didn’t want her to go, but he was having a hard time saying no… and then Riley and Patrick wanted to come.  There was no good reason for them to join in, but he supposed that the extra hands might come in helpful if he encountered any resistance from Amy and Jack… or Candy.  If anyone got in his way, he was just fine with shooting them.