Rain dripped in his eyes, but he never lost sight of the objective. In and out. That was the plan. Locate, identify, observe, and report, that's what Staff Sergeant Mitch Sinclair's squad of Force Recon Marines did best. Their assignment had been to uncover the truth of Kim Jong-il's health. Was he dead or gravely ill? Rumors contaminated the media. At 0800 hours, their mission changed from green ops-collect intelligence-to black ops-direct action. Separated from returning to their battalion by a sudden surge of North Korean militant action, they adapted to the situation.
Now, their job entailed extraction of the daughter of an American scientist from the North Koreans. With the way the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il hated Americans, Mitch found it ironic the dictator's youngest son, Kim Jong-un, ordered the capture of an American in order to help their cause. The attempt to kidnap David Summers, creator of the highly classified MD-3 missile navigation system, failed. So instead, they took Summers's daughter to use as leverage to gain the knowledge they desperately needed to back their nuclear claims. Intelligence out of Pyongyang helped thwart the scientist's capture, but it came too late to prevent Jong-un's backup plan. Take the only child of a widowed eccentric scientist and hold her hostage in exchange for missile guidance technology.
What the North Korean's didn't know… Allie Summers was the key to unlock that information. Due to her father's high level of intelligence, he lacked focus without her at his side. That little bit of information, Mitch hoped the enemy never discovered. If they did… he sighed heavily. He hated to think what they'd do to her to obtain the secrets they wanted. Torture was a way of life for these militant groups and the North Koreans held the charter on nasty techniques. This he'd learned from studying the Korean War and listening to stories from his uncles who'd been there. He never thought he'd be following in their footsteps in another disagreement with North Korea. This time the issue was nuclear.
Hopefully, he prayed, North Korea would back down from the pressure of strict sanctions from the UN. A smidgeon of doubt about Kim Jong-il's sanity and health clouded that hope. From everything Mitch read, this dictator lacked the foresight to understand the repercussions of using nuclear weapons. Everyone suffered from the fallout and not just the country fired upon.
Now, because of this lunatic, Mitch and his squad were in North Korea's mountainous terrain watching and waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Part of him hungered for the chance to take out a few of the enemy, but the good Recon Marine in him knew his job. Get in and out without being seen or firing a shot and save the hostage from harm. Forty-eight hours was a long time to be captive. If he could help it, tonight would be her last night as a victim.
A pair of dark brown eyes haunted him. The picture of Allie Summers seemed tattooed inside his head. Something about those big, brown eyes captured him the moment he studied her file. Mitch swiped the back of his hand across his eyes removing the excess water from the driving rain. Returning his gaze to the practically non-detectable camouflaged building in the distance, he waited and watched for the chance to complete this mission.
From a smattering of intercepted coded conversations, Mitch and his men gathered the fact a package was due for delivery. The low rumble of an engine cut through the steady pound of the rain. Mitch slid his night vision goggles in place and studied the unmarked panel van making its way along the narrow dirt road. When it came to a stop, six men exited the building and surrounded the van.
Bounced around in the back of a cold vehicle, Allie struggled with her bindings. Pain burned into her wrists and sizzled up her cramped arms. Both feet were numb and she ached to wiggle them, but she'd long since lost the ability to even move her toes. Wrapped in a dirty burlap sack, she couldn't see. Slivers of light snuck through the tiny weaves of the fabric informing her when day turned to night. From her calculations, she'd been in this bag for roughly forty-eight to fifty hours. With the ability to roll around, she assumed she was in the back of a van or cargo truck of some sort.
The gag in her mouth prevented her from speech or swallowing. Desert dryness coated her tongue, making her hunger for water. The sound of rain pounding the roof of the moving vehicle almost made her laugh. If not for the gag, she would have. A torrential downpour outside and not one drop for her to drink.
Eyes closed, she tried to make sense of the past two days. How had she gotten here? One minute she was stepping out of a cab to represent her father at a scientific awards ceremony, the next she was here. From the dialect she'd heard, her captors sounded Asian. An eerie sensation in the pit of her stomach suggested she wasn't in the States any longer. Somehow they'd managed to smuggle her out. But to where? And why?
Then it hit her. An image flashed inside her brain of a recent news break she'd watched. North Korea… oh God, had she been taken by the North Koreans? The vehicle halted. Rain still poured outside. The doors opened and shut on the vehicle's front. Somewhere close, another door opened. Heavy footsteps fell. Allie strained to hear, but couldn't decipher the voices. Did they know the truth?
Inhaling deep through her nostrils didn't ease the sudden knot in her chest. It only managed to fill her lungs with stale air and induced the need to cough. Fear gripped her system, but she refused to relinquish command to such weakness. She needed strength to think straight. Focusing on her father, she gathered a calm from deep within her soul and willed her senses to right. Think, she reprimanded. How could they have discovered she was the driving force behind her father's ideas? No one knew. She'd made certain over the past few years to cover their family secret from scrutiny. He'd fallen apart when Mother died. To protect her father's reputation, she stepped into her mother's shoes as his assistant and helped keep his gifted intelligence on track.
No one knew she'd done more than assist. She worked closely with him on this latest system. Being the daughter of a genius had its perks and its downfalls. As a child, she'd hated being the smartest kid in class, so her parents shielded her from the hurt and homeschooled her. Through a variety of online colleges, she earned several different masters degrees, one of which was nuclear physics. There wasn't a schematic in this guidance system she didn't understand since she helped create the design.
There's no way the Koreans knew. She made Father promise not to state the extent of her participation in this project in his documentation. The memory of that disagreement brought momentary joy to her heart. He wanted to share acknowledgement of the accomplishment with her, but she refused, convincing him her time to shine in the scientific world would eventually come. She wanted him to remain billed as one of America's top scientists until the day he died and she didn't care how much of her work went into keeping him at the top. In truth, she feared losing him. He guided and pushed her forward, urged her to propel into new venues of science. Without him…
Allie bit against the gag in her mouth hoping to somehow chew through it, but couldn't. Each movement of her hands dug the binding deeper into her wrists, instead of loosening it. There had to be a way to escape. She needed to get back to her father and make sure he was safe. Without him, she'd be lost and alone. Together, they were a brilliant team. Moisture coated her cheek as a tear rolled from the corner of her eye. He was all she had left.
Her eyes widened as the thought struck. Did they have him, too?
Panic thrashed her system. She had to get out of here and find him. He had to be safe. Breathe, she reminded herself. Now was not the time to hyperventilate. In, out, slow and easy, she forced herself to inhale and exhale until her nerves settled. If her father were in danger, she'd need her wits about her to think things through and get them out of here.