Special Forces Rendezvous by Elle Kennedy Read Free Book Online Page A

Task force? No, make that joint cleanup crew.
    “She’s lying.”
    The muffled voice drifted toward him, uttered by—holy hell, a United States Army general. Christ, they’d sent someone that high on the totem pole to handle this cleanup? This was bigger than he’d thought.
    He inched closer, struggling to make out the conversation occurring twenty yards away.
    “...to Valero. Question the staff, see what Carlisle told them.”
    “...necessary? And to contain that many people?”
    “Easier if...”
    Sebastian’s gut swam with uneasiness. He needed to get closer.
    Adjusting his grip on the knife, he moved without making a solitary sound, finding cover behind another tree, this one with low-hanging branches that allowed him to blend into the darkness.
    “...the clinic will be handled.”
    The clinic? Waves of foreboding crawled up his spine, moving faster and gathering in intensity when the general uttered a very familiar name.
    “Davenport needs to be handled, too.”
    Sebastian’s shoulders became stiffer than a block of marble. Davenport? As in Julia Davenport? As in the woman he’d spoken to only hours ago?
    “...won’t be hard. Her death could be blamed on the virus.”
    The general seemed to mull it over. “Carlisle was checking on patients when he died.”
    “We’ll say she was here, too. Making the rounds with Carlisle.”
    “The powers that be won’t like this. Two dead American doctors? This won’t look good.” There was a savage curse. “But that’s what they get for releasing Meridian this close to a damn international medical facility. Who was the genius who made that call?”
    Meridian? Sebastian filed away the word as he watched the duo move away from the tent.
    The general glanced at the soldiers manning the entrance. “If she tries to run, shoot her,” he ordered.
    Sebastian’s body was strung tighter than a drum as the two men stalked off. If what he’d heard was accurate, then Julia Davenport was inside that tent. How the hell had that happened?
    The colleague. Crap. She must have driven up here to check on her colleague, that Kevin guy she’d been worried about earlier.
    Her death could be blamed on the virus.
    His next breath came out ragged as a jolt of anger slammed into his gut. These bastards were planning to kill Julia and blame it on the virus.
    No way.
    No freaking way would he allow that to happen.
    She’s not your objective.
    The nagging little voice only further pissed him off. He knew that rescuing the doctor wasn’t his responsibility. Hell, all the mayhem and confusion of the past ten months was a direct result of his unit’s attempt to rescue a doctor. But Harrison’s death was no sweat off his back, not after they’d discovered the man was treating humans like lab rats.
    But Julia Davenport? He’d be damned if he was going to let her become another casualty of that goddamn virus. So yes, he ought to be gathering more intel, listening in on more conversations, attempting to get a peek inside one of those body bags, but Sebastian was more than willing to give up any insight he’d find if it meant saving the smart, sassy woman who’d made his body burn today.
    * * *
    The soft hissing sound brought a frown to Julia’s lips. She twisted around in the chair, trying to pinpoint where the noise had come from. She strained her ears, but the sound had stopped.
    Tssssss.
    Her forehead creased. Okay, what was that?
    For a second she wondered if her captors had let loose a poisonous snake in the tent or something. As her heartbeat quickened, she shot to her feet and examined the ground, but she didn’t see a rattler crawling on the dirt.
    Tssssss.
    She spun around, gaping when she noticed a line slowly appearing in the tent wall.
    Someone was cutting the canvas!
    Fear and astonishment warred inside her, but the latter quickly overtook the former when a large hand poked through the slit in the tent and a familiar pair of silver eyes suddenly locked with hers.
    Julia