4-Bound By Danger by SE Jakes Read Free Book Online

shoulder and knew something had changed. Why he hadn’t been told about it was something he didn’t have time to ponder. Instead, he kept his feet moving until the explosion shattered the quiet, and the last thing he heard was the ringing in his ears.

Chapter Six
    They were taking fire from both sides, but Jace was too busy concentrating on the mission at hand, which was the rescue of two American Red Cross workers. Rex and Sawyer flanked him with a cover of flash-bang grenades and rapid fire as he worked to extricate the unconscious woman from her bonds. She’d been tied inside the abandoned building along with her coworker, who was barely awake and was helping Jace now.
    Jace finally cut her free, and she fell back into her coworker’s arms. He caught her before her head hit the ground, and then Jace took her in hand. “We’re headed toward that Humvee.”
    “Through the street?” the man whispered over her head as Jace picked up and cradled the woman in his arms so if she woke, she wouldn’t see what she was heading into. The guy wasn’t that lucky.
    “Yes. Keep your head down, your hand on my belt and stay close.” Jace got a better grip on the woman and nodded to Rex. “We’re going in three.”
    He counted down, and the man did as Jace asked, holding on and running for dear life. The trip probably seemed like it took forever, but it was under a minute from the time they left the building until they were inside the truck and semisafe.
    The Humvee was bulletproof but not bombproof, and Sawyer drove like a bat out of hell to get them away from the line of fire as Jace worked on the woman and Rex readied to give cover while guiding Sawyer. Their CO was calm and cool under any pressure, and that made it easy for them to be the same way.
    “Drink this.” Sawyer pushed fresh water at the man, never taking his eyes off the road. “What’s your name?”
    “Hank. That’s Lani.”
    “Hank, you’ll be fine—so will Lani. We’ll take you to an American base where doctors will look at you.” Jace looked up. “If you want to go home, you’ll be escorted from there.”
    Hank looked undecided, and Jace didn’t blame him. Relief workers in this part of the world got the shit end of the stick—and most stuck with it despite the many risks.
    He and Sawyer and Rex hadn’t gotten called in to rescue these two. They were there on a much different mission when they stumbled on the hostages, literally. And they refused to leave them behind, even in the face of mounting danger. Rex had radioed to base camp that they’d found the missing Red Cross workers who’d been kidnapped days earlier and presumed dead even as he had Jace getting them ready for transport.
    “We’ve got company,” Rex said, quietly enough so Hank didn’t notice. Sawyer sped up and took a hard right turn with all the grace he could in the big truck while Jace hung on and braced Lani, who was still out of it.
    “Was she hit?” he asked Hank, mainly to distract him, since there was an obvious contusion on the side of her head.
    “Twice, with the butt of a gun,” Hank confirmed. “She started yelling at the kidnappers when they tried to drag her away from me. She went down and she’s been out maybe the last four hours.”
    These two were lucky, although they probably didn’t feel that way now. “She’s breathing okay—pupils equal and reactive,” Jace said.
    “I tried to rouse her—she opened her eyes once, but she’s disoriented.”
    “You a medic?”
    “Yes,” Hank said. “Lani’s an RN. We came here together—same flight, although we didn’t know each other before. We’ve been here three months.”
    “You’ll have to give a full report once we’re on base,” Rex cut in, and Hank nodded at the big man with the big gun.
    The ride would seem like forever—Jace knew from experience that just because they seemed like they were safe didn’t mean shit. Too many things could go wrong, and he’d been planning for such