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Jenny shut her eyes and imagined herself enjoying making mud pies. She knew she had enjoyed doing it when she had grown up in Wyoming. At least for a little while. Before getting dirty was a bad thing. Before everything she did was a bad thing.

She scooped up a glop of mud and tried to form it into a mud pie, but it was no use. It was too runny. So much for recreating a childhood memory.

She started singing the rain song.

“Rain on me. Rain on me.”

She pretended it was only rain streaking down her face and not tears. Then the coughing started up again, and she moaned at the pain in her chest, and the stabbing pain from her rib.

She swiped at her face and saw blood on her hand.

My nose.

Too bad she didn’t have WebMD to figure out why her damn nose was bleeding. Then she could hypochondriac herself to death.

She laughed. Which set off an even worse bout of coughing. Jenny tried to remain upright. She didn’t want to lie down in the mud. It got in her hair, and sometimes her ears and mouth. She felt herself slipping sideways along the wall. She covered her ear and closed her eyes, hoping she wouldn’t drown in mud.

“Three vehicles. A box truck with a logo of a bull on it, an SUV, and a van. Lots of men and weapons,” Brax could barely hear Jase say through his comm device. The monsoon was out of control, and the rain was making things almost impossible, including their ability to communicate.

“Give me a number,” Kostya demanded.

“I see nine. But there’s a barracks, three shacks and it looks like they’ve hauled in a trailer, which should be their command center. It has a satellite. My guess is this isn’t their first rodeo.”

“So, there is a road that wasn’t on the satellite images,” Brax growled loudly into his mic. Even with his poncho, the rain was pummeling his face as it came down sideways.

“Must have been small and covered by the trees, I didn’t see it,” Gideon said.

“If there is a trailer, barracks, and encampment, how did the satellite photos not pick it up?” Brax wanted to know.

“Most of it is under camouflage netting. They have a satellite dish on top of the trailer. That’s how they are accessing the internet.” Jase answered.

“That’s all I can see. Linc, you need to tell us the rest,” Jase said to their sniper who was now in a tall tree.

“I’m counting eleven. The barracks looks like it houses sixteen by my estimate. The trailer would be the command center, but it would also be where the leader stays.”

“The shacks?” Kostya asked.

“Only one has a padlock on it,” Linc answered.

“Then we have our target.”

Everybody heard the satisfaction in Kostya’s voice. Brax could almost hear him thinking. They all knew what needed to happen. They needed to get her piece off the chessboard first, so that she was protected, then they could go in and clean up.

“If I could be one of the ones to help get her out, then I could set that shack to blow as well as the others,” Brax said.

Kostya gave him a considering look, then slowly smiled. “I like it.”

“I need to be there to help get her out. We won’t know what shape she’s in,” Nolan chimed in.

Brax nodded. “Good call.”

God, let her be alive. I’m begging you. Let her be alive.

“Linc, stay in position where you can protect both of them if needed.”

“Got it.”

“The rest of us, we’ll surround their bunker. As soon as we hear from Nolan that he has Ms. Rivers out of there, and Brax has everything set to blow, I’ll give the order to start our assault. Linc, you focus on everyone who comes out of the barracks.”

“I can do that,” Brax said.

“Negative.” Kostya shook his head. “By the looks of her on that last proof of life, Ms. Rivers is going to require immediate help. I want her in Chattogram as soon as possible, and as far away from this assault as possible. Your job is to acquire a vehicle and work with Nolan to get her the fuck out of there.”

Made sense.

Brax nodded. He looked over at his friend through the rain, who gave him a worried smile. Brax’s heart sank. It wasn’t often that Nolan was worried about a patient. He always thought he could win the war and keep someone alive until they got to a hospital. His hesitation was not good. Not good at all.

Brax sidled up to him. “What’s got you so worried?” he asked out of the side of his mouth.

“Infection and pneumonia. That nosebleed says she’s probably coughing hard enough to break some blood vessels in her nose, ones that are already fragile from infection and severe dehydration. We’re close to the end if we don’t get to her soon.”

“Don’t say that,” was Brax’s vehement response. “You always have some voodoo. I’ve seen you put men’s guts back into their stomach and keep them alive. You have this.”

Nolan stood up straighter. “You’re right. I have this.”

“Okay, men. Let’s move.”

Brax gave a sigh of relief at Kostya’s command. He needed to get to Jenny.

Now.

Jenny’s racking cough woke her up. She started to cry as she attempted to wipe her eyes, and smeared more mud into them instead. She looked up and found another hole in the shack where rain was pouring through. She closed her eyes, moved under it, and let it wash her face. She was dying of thirst but was too afraid to drink the rainwater. God knew what it picked up from the roof.

At least I’m going to die with a clean face.

She hiccupped as another sob wrenched through her body. Somehow, she had enough strength to push herself up so she could lean against the wall of the shack. Sitting was too much to ask for.

I’m going to die, and I did a piss-poor job of living.

Tina. Tina always tried to stay in touch after college, but Jenny never had time for her old roommate. She was too busy trying to climb the corporate ladder. Even Jarrod, her brief boyfriend who had turned into a good friend, tried his best to hold on to their friendship, but Jenny had blown him off, too, until they fell out of touch. As far as current friends, Jenny could count them on one hand. Tina from college. Fiona from work when she was in London for Cyber Tech, up until Fiona left. Sabina was a brand new work friend, she supposed. And who else?

One hand? More like I can almost count my friends on one finger .

She’d been sad when her mom had died, but it had been like she’d died years before her actual death. Her dad? He couldn’t have died soon enough, as far as Jenny was concerned.

Work friends. I had a career and a handful of work friends wherever I went. What a waste of a life.

“Come on, you saw the world. You had adventures.”

Jenny bit her lip and dropped her head.

Such a waste.

She looked down at the mud and huffed out a laugh. This was her destiny. Death by mud.

“Fuck that shit! Quit with the maudlin and pull up your bootstraps!”

She looked around the shack.

“Who said that?”

She laughed. She’d said that. The problem was she couldn’t recognize the voice because she sounded like she’d been smoking five packs a day since she was a ten-year-old.

I’m right. I do need to quit with the boo-hoo.

She did her best to shove upward so she was sitting up. “I’m not going to die in mud. NECT has Kidnapping and Rescue, and if that doesn’t work, they’ll pay up.”

“Keep it down in there. You need to be quiet.”

“Who said that?”

Great, now I’m hallucinating. Figures.

She took a deep breath, trying to get her head on straight, then started hacking up a lung. She clutched her torso, trying to keep from jostling her rib, but it was no use. Spikes of agony sparked along every nerve ending until she was crying out in pain between coughs.

“Honey, can you try to be quiet? Just for a little bit.”

“Who are you?”

She heard the padlock being jostled. Great, time for another picture . They’d have to carry her out of here this time. There was no way she could walk.

Then she heard something at the back of the shack. It sounded like something was cutting and pulling at some boards that made up the back wall. She watched as three small boards were cut out, a little larger than a cupboard.

Weird.

“Ms. Rivers, it’s time to go.”

She looked at the glittering eyes that were mostly covered by a rubber or plastic poncho. She heard what he said, but he made no sense.

“Go where?”

“Ms. Rivers, we don’t have much time. Come over here and crawl out, and we’ll take you to safety.”

The mercenaries didn’t wear ponchos like that. “Who are you?”

“I’m Braxton Walker, I’m a member of the United States Navy. I’m here with my team, and our job is to get you out of here. Now please get over here so we can finish our mission.”

This has to be a hallucination. I’m drowning to death in the mud.

“Jenny, did you hear me?”

“You’re not real.”

“I am real, and I need you to get over here.”

Maybe he was real. She could hear the urgency in his voice.

“I’m sorry, but if you are real, this won’t work. I can barely sit up, let alone crawl over there. This won’t work.”

He looked at her for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, he said, “I understand.” He backed out of the hole and she was just left looking at the pouring rain.

Jenny stared at the hole. That man had to be real, didn’t he? There was a hole in the wall, so that meant he was real, right? He didn’t just disappear, did he?

She heard the same sawing and pulling and soon the hole was bigger. The man. What was his name? Oh yeah. Braxton. He was crawling into her muddy shack. He was fast. “Okay Jenny, let’s get you out of here.” He crouched down beside her, then put one arm beneath her legs and one arm around her back and picked her up like she weighed nothing. Her head lolled down, like her neck was broken.

“Shit.” He shifted, then somehow her head was resting against his chest. It felt good to be resting on the clean water of his poncho. He strode over to the hole and crouched down again. Then he threaded her through the passage and another set of arms gently picked her up into the same kind of hold. This man also held her so that her head was resting against his chest.

Who were these men?

Vaguely, she noticed the first man was standing up next to her. “I’m going to set the charges. Start heading to the side of the camp with the vehicles. As soon as I’m done, I’m going for a vehicle. Hopefully, you’ll be there by the time I’ve procured one.”

“Got it,” the man holding her said.

The first man left like he had never been there. The man carrying her looked down into her face. “Ms. Rivers, I’m going to have to set a fast pace to get us out of the line of fire and into a good position to take off in one of the vehicles. It’s going to be a rough ride, can you handle it?”

“Yes.” Her voice was so hoarse, she wondered if he could hear her.

“Is there any way you could ride piggyback along my front? We could make better time.”

Jenny felt the tears coming as she shook her head. She was useless.

“It’s not a problem. We can get this done. You know the SEAL motto. The only easy day was yesterday. We’ve got this.”

Well, that answered that question. They were SEALs. Maybe there was hope, after all.