Page 54 of Building Courage
“I understand.” He wouldn’t tell her how many close calls he’d had during missions. He’d learned to compartmentalize the memories and block them from his mind. Reliving things didn’t help him face the threats that might be down the road. The training they did for every mission gave him a sense of security, knowing he was as prepared as possible against the violence. And more importantly, he had his team watching his back.
But it didn’t sound like Brynn’s parents had watched hers. He eased his arm around her and was relieved when she moved to press in close against his side.
“Do your friends know about all this?” he asked.
“Some of it. I told Jess a little just today, but Martin guessed a few weeks after we met. Natalie found out before she hired me. She did a background check on me and a social media search and found the news articles about what happened. She wanted to interview me for an article about it, and I refused. I had enough of the press during the trial and before. They were part of the reason I left Saranac.”
“I can’t believe you went to work for her after that. She’s a piece of work.”
“I like to eat, and she was paying better than some of my other gigs. The kind of shots she likes for the magazine are a piece of cake, but don’t tell her I said that.”
Tucker grinned. She was bouncing back.
The alarm on his phone went off, and he jerked it free of the phone holster on his belt and looked at the message. He bit back an expletive. “I have to report to base, Brynn.”
“You’re already so close. I can get an Uber to run me home so you can go on.”
Getting into a car with a stranger after everything she’d told him… Not a chance. “No. I’m taking you.”
*
After five days in, first to Costa Rica and then Ecuador, the Ecuadorian police and American intelligence had tracked the four kidnappers to a small village. The Ecuadorians had held off going in. If something happened to the ambassador’s son, they wanted no part of it. They also wanted to avoid the adverse publicity about where the ambassador’s son had been held. Cowards.
Tucker looked through his infrared night vision goggles toward the heavily vegetated landscape for any movement or light. Rain pelted him and ran down his heavy black poncho, but he ignored it. The storm front would hide their movements and provide them cover in case any of the kidnapper’s partners were following them. So far, it had been quiet.
“Two clicks to evac,” Lieutenant Harding spoke into his ear through the com system.
The small Ecuadorian village came into view below the hillside they’d climbed. Scattered lights showed from the cinderblock houses with their tin roofs. The area was populated by farms, and the people were poor and humble, tied to the land by custom and family.
The Ambassador’s son, Robert Ferguson, limped behind Sam. He’d been beaten while trying to protect the women but was still ambulatory. He’d earned the SEAL’s respect for that.
The women, both blond and young, had been earmarked for sale on the open market. At least one had been assaulted. The two women walked side-by-side, their hands clasped tightly together despite the rain ponchos that covered them.
Sam came over the com. “Two clicks out from evac.”
The sun went down as they walked single-file down the ridge through lush, wet vegetation and soupy mud. They stopped just above a cinder block, tin-roofed farmhouse about the size of a two-car garage. Two small windows in the north wall glowed with light. Close by, pens constructed of rough wooden posts and wire held chickens and a few goats. A hundred feet or so from the house stretched a field.
Sam motioned them forward, and they started down the hill with the ambassador’s son and Bullet behind him. The rain made the rocky, muddy ground slick. Denotti and Tucker took up positions on either side of the women in case they needed help down the trail while Swan and Rosenburg followed. Beckham and Arrow guarded their backs.
Sam’s murmured answers to the transport team came back to him.
The distant womp-womp-womp of the helicopter carried above the sound of the rain, and Tucker’s tension increased. It was times like this, when he was about to board the helicopter to safety, that he was at his most vigilant. One shot stood between him and his team reaching safety and home. How many of his teammates had died running for transport to safety? He didn’t know and refused to think about it. Even though they’d taken the kidnappers out, and the threat level was low…he still held that heightened tension close.
The Seahawk topped the distant hills and bulleted toward them, its silhouette darker than the purple-blue evening sky. As a unit, they quickened their descent, jogged across the muddy road, and started through the field.
The helicopter landed forty feet away, kicking up the rain and flattening the tall, wet grass. The women broke into a run.
The unit followed their lead in order to maintain their position as their cover. Tucker couldn’t blame them for being eager to leave behind this place and their experiences here. What was supposed to be a vacation had turned into a nightmare.
They’d carry this experience with them just as Brynn carried hers. But the men responsible were dead and would never be able to harm anyone again. He hoped that brought them some comfort and closure. If there was any such thing.
Would Brynn have healed quicker if Gillespie had been killed? Maybe.
Some of the tension left him once they’d secured the survivors inside the aircraft and got loaded themselves. The Seahawk lifted off and turned back toward the coast.
He leaned back against a part of the fuselage on one side while Denotti took the other, bracketing the women.
Tucker tipped his Boonie hat back. The chopper bounced as it caught an air pocket, and the woman beside him gripped his arm. He turned to look at her. The bruises on her face and throat stood out like red-violet blooms, and there were broken vessels in her cheeks from being choked. Had Brynn looked like this?