Before she finished, Garrett interrupted her.
“We need Sayed alive, Martini One. Do you read me?”
In a hostage-rescue mission, the priority was to save innocent lives. Extracting the hostage had priority over the lives of the captors. And with Kinkaid along, she had a feeling the mission would be search and destroy—with extreme prejudice. Any man who had taken his Kate would pay.
“I read you. And we’ll do our best,” she acknowledged, but Garrett wasn’t done making his point.
“This is imperative, Martini One,” he insisted. “This isn’t a request. Consider it an order. Even if the pawn is at risk, we’ve got more at stake. The pawn is expendable.”
Alexa narrowed her eyes, not believing what she’d heard until he clued her in on why he was ordering a change in plans. Although he only spoke briefly, what he told her broke protocol. That couldn’t be helped. He knew she’d need more reason to go against her instincts.
Risking the life of the hostage they were trying to save made no sense. Garrett was asking her to place more importance on taking the terrorist leader into custody than in saving the life of the hostage Kinkaid had risked his life for. Her mission would be at odds with Jackson’s personal stake in all this.
When she had remained silent too long, Garrett clarified, “If there’s a choice, the nun is collateral damage. Is that clear?”
Alexa wiped the beads of perspiration from her lip. “Say again, sir?”
All she heard was static. She didn’t know if the SAT phone lost its link, but she stayed on the line, hoping Garrett would explain.
Garrett’s voice finally came on the line. “He hasn’t told you about her?”
“No. Not a word.”
“She has a direct line to the Almighty…and the uniform to match. They met at a hospital outside Boston. Years ago.”
“A hospital?” she questioned. “Was our boy wounded?”
She watched the rain roll down her arms and waited for his answer, not fully realizing she was holding her breath. There was a long stretch of silence before Garrett came back on the line.
“A psychiatric hospital, Martini One. Our boy was a patient there.”
CHAPTER 18
Alexa’s throat tightened as she turned her gaze down the hill and spotted Jackson Kinkaid staring up at her. Garrett’s words replayed in her head.
She tried to get more out of Garrett, but sharing details over the SAT phone was not the way to do it. Even though she had a feeling that her boss knew more about Kinkaid’s hospital stay, Garrett wouldn’t say any more about it. She had ended the call with more questions than she had answers. For her to think that Kinkaid’s mental state was part of his feud with Garrett would be pure speculation.
If she wanted to know more, she’d have to pick the right moment to get it from Kinkaid—even if she didn’t have the right to ask.
“What happened to you?” she whispered under her breath as she watched him through the rain.
The life they both led certainly wasn’t for the faint of heart. All operatives had their own reasons for the choices they made. And each mission tested their ability to live with what they did. She understood that. But for a guy as mentally tough as Jackson Kinkaid, what would have driven him over the edge and forced him into a psychiatric hospital? And what did a nun have to do with his mental breakdown?
As she headed down the slope, Alexa thought back to her initial infatuation with him. They’d had chemistry from the start, yet despite her wanting more, he never let the attraction go anywhere. They shared a few missions for the Sentinels, but after a while she lost track of him. And since he never talked about his private life, she didn’t know much about him beyond the job.
She slid down the bottom third of the hill and wiped her hands on her BDUs as Kinkaid joined her.
“What did Garrett have to say?” he asked.
“He’s got a team coming. They’ll make contact when they get here,” she told him. “And he gave me the name of the man in charge of the terrorist cell, the one who has…Kate.”
Kinkaid fixed his gaze on her. “Who is it?”
“Abdul Kabir Sayed. You know him?” she asked.
Kinkaid thought about it for a minute and shook his head.
“No. Name’s not familiar.” He narrowed his green eyes. The glint of the predator was back. “But I can’t wait to meet him.”
Alexa could have shared what Garrett had told her about taking Sayed alive for the sake of the greater good. Interrogating Sayed was imperative. Kinkaid would have understood her new directive—if Kate hadn’t been the one who was taken and the woman’s life wasn’t still hanging in the balance.
No, Kinkaid wouldn’t listen to reason. She’d keep the information about Sayed to herself for now and deal with Kinkaid later, when she had a team to back up any decision she might be forced to make.
“Let’s get moving,” she said. “We’ve got ground to cover before this rain gets worse.”
Alexa had a hard time looking him in the eye.
Baracoa, Cuba
Dusk
On the horizon loomed a recognizable landmark that Alexa remembered from her map, a distinctive plateau named El Yunque. Normally, Baracoa was a quaint colonial village surrounded by secluded beaches and a pristine rain forest, but it had become a virtual cesspool in the wake of the hurricane. The annihilation the storm had brought looked more dismal in the waning hours of an exhausting day as Alexa accompanied Kinkaid through the carnage.
Neither of them spoke. They couldn’t. No words would describe the devastation.
The overcast skies stole the last remnants of light, and the drizzle had been unrelenting. They were drenched and waded cautiously through knee-deep dark water as they followed a side street into town. To the right, churning seas brought whitecaps into the already flooded shoreline, with spindly trees protruding from muddy waters. The salty smell of the ocean mixed with the stench of raw sewage. Alexa found it hard to breathe.
Even at this hour, scantily clad survivors were still sifting through rubble in search of anything worth saving. Soggy mattresses, damaged but usable furniture, and clothing were piled high along the road, ready to salvage for those desperate enough to need it. And heaping piles of splintered wood, corrugated metal, and sandbags were stacked to create a barricade against high water. The refuse had been pulled from the wreckage of shops, office buildings, and dwellings in preparation for cleanup.
They had trailed Sayed to Baracoa, and their search for him would take top priority even though Kinkaid looked dead on his feet. Alexa feared Kate wasn’t the only one out of time.
“You holding up?” she asked.
“Yeah. No worries.” He avoided her gaze.
“Liar,” she muttered as she returned the stares of locals watching them from a distance.
She had stowed her assault rifle in her pack so she wouldn’t draw attention. Kinkaid had done the same, but they both kept their handguns in reach and under cover. Although most residents would be focused on recovering
