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Another wracking cough woke her up. Jenny wondered how long she’d slept this time. Ten minutes or ten hours. Did it matter? All she could hear was the ever-present rain pelting the tin roof of the shack.

She shifted, then groaned in pain. But she needed to get away from the leak in the shack’s roof. But where wasn’t there a leak? Her hand splatted in the mud. She lifted it up to the stream of water to rinse it. When it was clean, she could push back her hair from her face and do her best to tie her hair into a braid again, so it wasn’t straggled all over.

She must have slept for a few hours because her motor skills were better than the last time she’d tried to braid her hair. Her coughing made long work of her project. She’d been coughing forever. The best she could figure is that it had been going on for at least seven days, and it had become more bronchial in the last three. She was trying to spit up as much mucus as possible, but she felt more and more of it just settling and rattling in her chest.

Her laugh was hoarse and harsh as she thought of the next time they took a picture for their proof of life. How were they going to make her corpse look lively next to the Dhaka Tribune? She laughed harder as she thought of the pointy-faced prick who always picked her up by her hair realizing she was dead. Yeah, he’d sure be up shit creek with that fat son-of-a-bitch in charge then.

She started coughing again. It was so bad that she felt like her ribs might crack. She leaned over and ended up right where she started, rain pouring down the back of her neck. She tried to focus between the tumultuous hacking of her body and the searing pain in her ribs. Then she remembered a song by one of her idols.

Something about preferring to be dry, but at least she was alive.

As soon as she could breathe, Jenny starting singing.

“Rain on me. Rain on me.”

“Wake up!”

“Wake up!”

Someone was twisting the hair off her head.

“I said, wake up!”

Jenny opened her eyes and looked up at a man who looked scared. He turned away from her. “I told you she was alive.”

He was still holding her braid in his fist.

“Hurry and take the picture,” he yelled.

The flash of light shot through her eyes, into her brain, and Jenny screamed. If the tiny moan she heard could be considered a scream. She hurt. She hurt so bad.

“She’s going to die, and we’re not going to be paid. I should kill you now.”

“She’s fine.”

She was pulled up higher; now she was on her knees. “See, she’s almost standing.”

Through her haze Jenny could make out some of the Bangla language, not much, but enough. Thank God she’d taken her job seriously and did her best to learn the language. But dammit, not enough!

Shut up! At least they want me alive!

Jenny started coughing, and all hope of understanding what they were saying was whisked away as she did her best to hold in the worst of it so that she wouldn’t literally break a rib. But she was sure she already had.

When she could breathe again, she felt two men on either side of her. They both reached under one of her armpits and lifted her up.

Jenny cried out in agonizing pain as fire ripped up her left side.

Ribs punctured lungs, right?

How?

They were dragging her out of the shack and for the first time in what felt like years she was outside. It was monsoon season and there was mud and rain, but she was outside. She moaned with pleasure. The cold water felt so good on her fevered skin, she never wanted to go indoors again. Then she started to shiver. As soon as she had that thought, she was thrust through the door of what looked like some kind of mobile home or trailer.

Jenny landed face first on damp carpet.

“Hey!”

“What are you doing?”

They were two unfamiliar voices.

“You’re the brains of this outfit. You think you know everything about how to get us money? Well, Rakib wants you to keep her alive so that we get our money. Good luck with that.”

Jenny heard the door shut behind her, then there was dead quiet, until she started to cough.

“What’s wrong with her?” the voice asked. He sounded young.

“How should I know?” somebody else answered.

“We need her alive.” The young voice spoke again.

“I know that!” Despite the yelling, the older man was gently rolling Jenny over. “Can you talk?” he asked her in English.

She groaned as he rolled her onto her injured rib, the groan turned into great hacking coughs.

She heard him shout, “When was the last time she drank? Get her some water.”

Jenny cringed at the idea of more water when she was finally in a place where she wasn’t being rained on.

“Miss, lift up your head. You need to drink.”

Huh? What’s he talking about?

Sandpaper hands pushed her forehead backward, and a bottle pressed against her lips. As the first drop of the untainted water hit her tongue she reached up to grab the bottle, but her arms were too weak.

“Easy, Miss. Let us help you.”

Her two functioning brain cells told her they just wanted to help her so they could get their ransom, but she didn’t care. She was dying of thirst, even as dirty rainwater poured into the hut. Ingesting clean water was survival. That’s all her life had come down to since she had been dumped in the back of that meat truck.

Survival.

“She’s shivering. Get a blanket.”

“It’s not going to be of any use, with all those wet clothes.”

“I’m not going to undress her, are you?” the older man asked.

Jenny sent up a silent prayer of thanks. She didn’t know the name of the one guard who was constantly pushing and pulling at her. The guard who, so far, had never been alone with her. But that pig definitely wanted to undress her.

If he rapes me, I think I’ll just drown myself in the mud.

“Turn on the floor heater, and let’s put her near it,” the older man said. He was trying to gently move her away from the door, where she had originally been thrown, but it didn’t matter how gentle he tried to be. It hurt. Everything. Everywhere. Her whole body hurt .

Jenny shifted her toes in her right boot and cried out in pain. When was the last time she’d taken her boots and socks off and lifted her feet up to the running water coming from the ceiling to wash them? How many mini showers had she attempted to give her different body parts in futile hopes of staying healthy?

Now that she was out of her shack, had some clean water to drink, and a dry spot, she couldn’t think of anything good. She hurt too much. Jenny finally realized just how bad her coughing and fever chills were. Maybe she wouldn’t survive after all.

“She looks better.”

It was the leader. She’d seen him a couple of times. He was a fat man. Everybody bowed and scraped around him.

“Get the hair out of her face so I can see her eyes, then take the picture.”

Before anyone could touch her, Jenny pushed her hair back behind her ears, grateful that it was now finally dry.

“Hold this.” Somebody shoved a newspaper into her hands. She looked at the date.

It wasn’t possible. There was no way that only three weeks had gone by. It felt like she had been taken a year ago.

As she held up the paper in front of her, drops of blood marred the Dhaka Tribune.

The flash of a camera went off and she winced.

“What is wrong with her?” The leader demanded an answer.

“Her nose is bleeding,” a young man said. She recognized him. He’d given her a blanket and water and food. Soft food, because her mouth hurt.

“Why is her nose bleeding?”

“Who knows,” somebody answered. “We’re going to get our payment any day. Then we won’t need her anymore.”

Jenny knew her expression didn’t change. She’d stopped letting them get to her after the first forty-eight hours of captivity. It was like with her dad, she never wanted them to know what she was thinking or feeling. And, anyway, they’d been talking about not needing her for a long time now. Hadn’t they figured out her company wasn’t going to pay up?

“Are you sure they’ll finally pay?” the old man asked.

Shit. He shouldn’t have asked the leader that. That was a sure way to get yourself killed. She’d seen it happen.

“After their men disappeared? I’m sure,” Rakib, the leader, finally answered. “Now that she’s had all this nice time in the trailer, put her back in the shack.”

Jenny’s heart plummeted. She might have told herself she could handle anything, but the idea of being in that six-inch-deep mud, with the bucket for a toilet and wet naan for a meal almost did have her in tears.

She looked down when she felt more drips, afraid she was crying in front of the leader. But they weren’t tear drops, they were more drops of blood from her nose. This couldn’t be good.

Gideon had gotten them more intel by the time they dropped in. They no longer were just aiming for the same area where the K&R bodies were found. Finally, New Era Cyber Tech was talking to the Department of Homeland Security. They confessed that Jenny Rivers had indeed been kidnapped, and that there was a ransom request. Bangladesh was a shitshow right now. Too many competing factions trying to take over the country, and that made it damn near impossible to determine who to talk to about Jenny’s kidnapping.

The US Embassy had already sent home all non-essential employees, so Omega Sky was depending on the locals and remaining embassy personnel who had been in place for years for intel. These were the people who would have knowledge of who had kidnapped Jenny Rivers, and where they might be headquartered.

As soon as all of the team had landed, and each one of them had been sure to stash or hide their parachute in a spot where it wouldn’t be found, they met up.

“Where to?” Jase asked casually. He sounded like he was about to take a day’s hike in the woods and then go roast hotdogs and have s’mores later.

Gideon took his precious tablet out from his pack. “Mark this, in case we get separated.” He provided the coordinates. “We received some intelligence that there is a band of Bangladeshi mercenaries operating five clicks east of Silchari. That gives them some road access, but then they have enough forest coverage to be invisible.”

Gideon blew up a satellite image of the small village of Silchari. They could see the areas that must be crops, a few homes, and a narrow road. Having some kind of mercenary headquarters nearby made sense.

Brax looked up and saw ominous rain clouds to the east. Right now the rain was mild. Soon it would be torrential.

Jase took point and Kostya took up the rear, with Gideon right in front of him. They would stop every three hours to see if Gideon got any updates, using his equipment connected to satellites. His tablet was bulletproof. Well, maybe not bulletproof, but it could take a licking and keep on ticking. The monsoon didn’t stop it.

“Anything new?” Kostya asked on their fifth stop when Gideon was avidly studying his tablet.

“I’ve got a photo, two days old, that the kidnappers sent to her company for proof of life. The company has transferred a third of the ransom in cryptocurrency to their account. That was today. My guess is that is just going to piss off the mercenaries, and they’re going to do something to show they mean business to get the rest of the money.”

Brax looked around and saw how everybody was taking the information. All of them were looking over Gideon’s shoulder to see the picture of Jenny holding up the newspaper with the date on it. It was two days ago. She looked awful. It was clear she was extremely sick. Even if they got there by 0400, would she still be alive? And what was with her company? Why were they dicking around with the ransom? They knew that five men had died trying to rescue her.

“Boss, she’s not going to make it,” Nolan said what the rest of them were thinking. “By the looks of it she’s either been beaten badly and we just can’t see it, or she’s suffering from an infection. By the flush on her face, and the glassy eyes and the nosebleed, my bet is infection.”

Brax looked closer at the picture and he saw exactly what Nolan was talking about.

“Do you have antibiotics that can help her?” Brax asked.

He nodded. “But we’ll need to get her to a hospital, fast.”

Everybody nodded. Brax took one last look at her picture and sent up a prayer. She reminded him of CiCi and how desperately ill she had been so many times. Fuck picking up the pace, he wanted to start running.

Mateo nudged him. “You okay?”

It was funny how much he’d bonded with the guy after the near miss at Gideon’s place eight months ago. Before, he’d have said Nolan was his go-to guy, but now it was a toss-up.

“Just worried about Jenny.”

“You were looking at her pretty intensely. Bringing up thoughts of your sister?”

Okay, maybe he was closer to Mateo than he realized.

“Yeah. I can’t stand that she’s sick, and that she’s been abandoned like she has.”

“Abandoned?”

“By her fucking company. What are they thinking, only paying a third of the ransom? Are they stupid?”

“Homeland Security will straighten them out,” Mateo assured him.

“Yeah, but soon enough?”

They looked at one another. They both knew that the kidnappers were likely to escalate to get the rest of their money.

“Listen up,” Kostya raised his voice so everybody could hear him. “Change of plans. Now that we have the intel that we need, we’re going to do this double time. I want us to get there by dawn. I don’t care if we have to hit them during daylight. We’ll do what we have to get our target out of there safe, sound, and whole.”

Brax grinned, and when he looked around, he saw everybody else grinning as well.