Title: For His Eyes Only
Author: T.C. Archer
Genre: Action, Adventure, Contemporary,
Romance, Suspense, Thriller
Publisher: Set
Ebook
Words: 79,000
Purchase: Amazon
Book Description
Jesse
Evans is the most wanted woman in the world. She must prove she didn't sell out
the elite Special Ops team she sent into a Columbian village to rescue a little
girl, or her sister dies. Only one man can save them both. But he isn't who
Jesse thinks he is.
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
A gunshot silenced jungle-chatter for a heart
stopping instant. The bullet ripped nearby foliage as Jesse vaulted over the
decaying trunk of a fallen corozo palm. She landed on the soft, sloping
Columbian jungle floor and bolted to the right deeper into the foliage—and away
from where her informant Martinez had been gunned down. She choked back
anguish. He shouldn’t have run when mercenaries burst upon their meeting place.
He had a young wife and child who would now have to go into hiding in order to
avoid being tortured and killed by the Columbian drug lords in payment for his
having aided an American spy.
She scrambled down the slope into a patch of dense
undergrowth, pushed through vines and spider webs, and finally emerged on the
bank of a slow moving stream. Sunlight streamed through a wide break in the
canopy. Blue sky arched overhead in backdrop to dark green foliage. A satellite
signal might be possible through the gap in the trees.
Jesse slowed to a crawl and concentrated past the
red howler monkey screeches and parrot caws for footfalls or leaves rustling to
indicate Martinez’s killers slinked through the foliage in search of her.
Nothing.
She dropped to her knees, yanked open a pocket of
her camouflage fatigues, and pulled out the secure satellite phone. She flipped
it open, punched out home base’s ten-digit number, then pressed the receiver to
her ear and held her breath until the first elongated ring began. By the third
ring, her heart pounded so hard, the thud echoed in her ears.
“Come on. Pick up.” She tried to ignore the dribble
of sweat trickling down the valley between her breasts as the fourth ring
began.
What was wrong? HQ verified the source of incoming
calls on the first ring and picked up on the second. She jerked the phone from
her ear and squinted at the display. Five black bars along the left indicated a
strong signal. She pressed the phone against her ear and shoved aside a lock of
hair which had worked free of the brain numbingly tight ponytail. Why weren’t
they—
“Designation, please,” came the operator’s voice.
“Control, this is Blue Delta Four.”
“Designation code?”
“Zebra, four, eight, two, seven, golf,” Jesse
replied in a low voice.
“Confirmed, Delta Four. What is your status?”
“I am not at target. Must speak with Blue Leader.”
“Blue Leader is out of communication range.”
“Code blue,” Jesse hissed. “Get me Blue Leader
Five.”
A click sounded on the line, a quick ring, then a
male voice answered, “Delta Four, this is Green Leader. What’s happened?”
Jesse froze. Green Leader? Why had Robert Lanton
intercepted her call? “Where is Blue Leader?” she demanded.
“Out of communication range. What’s happened?”
She hesitated.
“What is your status?” he asked.
She silently cursed, but gave in. “We have a leak.
The Columbians knew about the meeting.”
Silence, then, “That’s impossible.”
“Negative, Green Leader. Repeat, they were waiting.
Abort Operation Hangman.”
“What is your source?” he asked.
Her heart thumped harder with memory of Martinez
lunging for the trees when the mercenaries rushed them. “M-2,” she replied with
effort.
“How did M-2 obtain his information?”
She wondered the same thing. “I don’t know. Before
he could confirm his source, the Columbians shot him. But he was scared, really
scared. The leak has to be high up.” Anger, hot and hard, shot through her.
Martinez’s life had been forfeit—and for nothing. “If that little girl dies
because someone at HQ leaked the mission, I’ll kill—”
“Verify your designation code,” Green Leader cut
in.
What? She’d never been asked to verify her identity
a second time. The control operator had already verified her code. “Zebra,
four, eight, two, seven, golf,” Jesse counted off.
An almost imperceptible pause followed, then, “That
code is outdated, Delta Four. Give me your current verification.”
Outdated? Her mind whirled. “What the hell is
this?”
“Current verification, Delta Four.”
“Get Blue Leader on the line right now, and put me
through voice recognition,” Jesse ordered.
“Negative,” he replied. “Not without current
verification.”
“Get the director on the line—now! Don’t send in
Green Team until you’ve verified with him. The Columbians were waiting for
us—they murdered M-2. They knew about our meeting. That confirms what he told
me. The Columbians have intel on
Operation Hangman. Our men will be slaughtered.”
The line went dead.
“Wha—”
Jesse yanked the phone from her ear and looked at
the screen. Five bars of signal strength held strong. She punched the direct
emergency number to Blue Leader. A fast busy signal resonated through the
connection. She pressed the phone’s display button. The display blinked unavailable. The network—satellites,
ground stations, handsets—had never, ever been unavailable. It was designed and
built by the best to be always available. HQ had scrambled the access code.
Her heart went stone cold. Green Team was headed
straight into the arms of the Columbian mercenaries.
Only two hours ago, she gave the go ahead to move
in and rescue Maria Hamilton, Senator Hamilton’s daughter. Jesse hadn’t spotted
any guerrillas hidden among the villagers, but she now knew they were there,
just as they’d been there when she met with Martinez.
A slight breeze wafted past, cooling the sweat
soaked shirt that clung to her back and sending a chill down her spine. She was
Blue Team—recon—working solo. She should have smelled the trap. Yet she’d sent
her team in to be murdered—unless…
Jesse drew a deep breath to slow her heart rate
while visualizing the map of coastal Columbia. The village sat three kilometers
to the south over a small but treacherous pass jungle pass. Forty people lived
in the village, farmers—or so she’d thought. How many were mercenaries employed
by Amadeo Perez, the most powerful drug lord in Columbia, and the man
responsible for kidnapping Senator Hamilton's daughter?
Probably every last one of
them.
***
Forty minutes later, the nearby staccato
rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire sounded in rapid succession.
The village.
Jesse pumped her legs faster, thrashing and clawing
through thick foliage. Another volley echoed.
“Come on, Green Team,” she urged. “Kick some drug
runners’ ass.”
Muscles burned with the final effort to reach the
summit overlooking the village. Branches whipped and tore at her face as she
flew through the foliage and burst into the open above the village. She fell to
her knees, fumbled the compact binoculars from a thigh pocket, and forced her
shaky hands steady enough to scan the village as she dropped to her belly.
Armed mercenaries danced in drunken celebration in the village center. Relief
tightened her chest at sight of two men wearing U.S. fatigues, hands tied
behind their backs and kneeling within the circle of mercenaries.
Green Team.
But Green Team was comprised of six men. Where were
the other four? Her heart surged. They had to be hidden in the jungle,
preparing to rescue their teammates. If she could find them—several mercenaries
near the two men swung their rifles heavenward and fired bursts.
Stay calm, Jesse mentally urged the
two Americans.
She scanned the village perimeter. No eyes, glint
of metal, or shadow out of place. Dammit, until Green Team wanted to be seen
she wouldn’t detect so much as a leaf flutter. She swung the binoculars back to
the village center and counted forty-two armed men crowding the small square.
Between herself and the four remaining Green Team members, they could—one of
the men who had fired his rifle into the air swung the weapon downward. Jesse
realized his intent and pushed to her knees as she yanked the 9mm Beretta from
her thigh holster. The rifle barrel halted an inch from the nearest Green Team
member’s temple. He lunged for the mercenary. The second Green Team member
shoved to his feet.
Jesse fired in unison with the boom of the
mercenary’s rifle. Blood gushed from the hole blown in the first Green Team
member’s head. Jesse’s stomach lurched as he dropped to the ground. She fired
again. Pandemonium broke out. The second Green Team member staggered back under
the onslaught of AK47 bullets. Jesse aimed the Beretta on the man shooting at
him and fired three shots. Then she froze.
A gap had opened between the mercenaries at the
north end of the village. On the ground behind them, four ops-clad bodies lay
piled atop one another. The hand holding the binoculars shook so badly the
bodies looked as if they bounced in the throes of an earthquake. She couldn’t
tear her eyes from the blood stained fatigues. Green Team dead? It wasn’t
possible.
Her pulse jumped. Senator Hamilton’s daughter.
Tears streamed down Jesse’s face. She yanked open a
vest pocket and pulled out the sat-phone. Blood roared in her ears. She
redialed Blue Leader Headquarters at Langley. This time, there was no tone, no
click of a connection. Nothing but static. She pushed the display button on the
sat phone. Unavailable blinked as it
had earlier. The code had been scrambled. She'd been locked out…and the
mercenaries had murdered Green Team.
Someone inside the Office of Internal Affairs had
sold out the U.S.
The same person who had locked her out.
Green Leader, Robert Lanton.
About The Author
T.
C. Archer is comprised of award winning authors Evan Trevane and Shawn M.
Casey. They live in the Northeast.
Evan
puts his Ph.D. to good use by writing about alternate realities, and Shawn
channels the mythology and philosophy she studied during her wasted youth into
writing about exotic places and times.
Find The Author
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