Holiday Op

Chapter One

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.

Allie lay still listening to the rain and straining to hear the voices of her captors. Male, distinctively male. A loud grate of metal upon metal broke the air. The vehicle's rear doors opened. Cool wind blew in, causing her to shiver. A foreign tongue echoed as a hand clasped her ankle. With no regard to her safety or comfort, he dragged her across the floor to the door. Bumped and bruised, she managed to hold her head up to prevent it from bouncing on the hardness, desperately trying to prevent being knocked unconscious.

Cold steel touched her skin and she stilled. Tightness left her ankles the moment he sliced the ropes. One shoe on and one shoe off, they dragged her from the van to stand. Silence filled her ears, echoed by the steady beat of rain on the ground. The canvas bag blocked her view. She sensed several stood around her as she struggled on stiff legs to remain upright. The rip of cloth, the sensation of material parting and the occasional nick of the blade made her fully aware they removed the burlap shroud. Blinking, she held her head down until her eyesight adjusted. A fist in her hair jerked her head upward shooting stars behind her eyes. Shifting her weight to her bare foot, Allie attacked the assailant's knee with the other still sporting a six-inch black leather stiletto.

The sudden release of her hair and his simultaneous howl granted her a brief instant of freedom. Running haphazardly, she dodged two men before another tackled her from behind sending them skidding face first in the mud. Before he could get a good grip on her, she twisted and turned trying to escape. With her mouth gagged, she couldn't bite. Both hands were still tied tight together, but she flailed her arms like a club knocking him in the side of the head.

The point of a rifle in her face followed by the heavily accented word, “Halt,” caused her to capitulate. The mud-covered man on top of her jumped to his feet. For several long seconds, she lay still, catching her breath and assessing her surroundings. Rain pelted her face washing away some of the mud. It stung her eyes, but she hesitated to wipe them with her dirty, bound hands.

They wanted something from her or else she'd already be dead. Allie swiped the gun barrel out of her face as she sat upright. Covered in thick mud, she struggled without help to her feet. She maintained as much grace and dignity that a one shoed, soaking wet, mud-covered woman could muster, and stared the wielder of the gun in the eye.

His silence and steady stare provoked her anger. She was in no mood for any further games. Cold, tired, and hungry, and though she hated to admit it, fear made her insides quiver. Not relinquishing his stare, now that the canvas bag was no longer tied around her, she managed to wiggle her fingers under the gag and together with the push of her tongue removed it from her mouth. She caught enough rain to coat her tongue and wet her mouth. Slowly enunciating each word she demanded. “What… do… you… want… with… me?"

"Nothing."

She spun to see a man in the open doorway of a building. At roughly five feet, he stood several inches shorter than she. The light positioned behind him gave his lean frame an eerily dark appearance and hid his features from view. Obviously, he was the one in control. Clipped commands in what she suspected as Korean and the men scurried to please. The man with the gun lowered the barrel, produced a knife, and removed the bindings from her wrists. Men on each side of her nudged her toward the door, though she hesitated to move. She simply stared at the shadowed, short man. He sidestepped, keeping his back against the door, and waved a hand inward toward the warm, inviting glow of the room.

"For now you shall be treated as my guest."

A solid push from behind and she was forced to close the gap between them. As she stepped into the doorway, he leaned close. His voice turned sinister as he warned, “Try to escape again and the punishment will be unpleasant."

Faster than she'd ever seen anyone move, he brought the man to her left to his knees with a series of swift blows and showed no mercy when he snapped his neck ending his life. The gasp froze in her throat as the sight of the man she'd stabbed with her shoe crumpled into a heap.

Heated words left the killer's lips and the dead man was quickly dragged into the night. Her knees threatened to buckle. She'd never seen a man murdered and prayed she'd never see it again. Pulling her eyes from the disappearing corpse she stared at their leader. She managed to force one word from her lips.

"Why?"

"It is a weak man who cannot keep a hold on a woman, especially one that's bound and gagged. His death proved to the others failure is not tolerated."

He spun on his heels and marched into the room. Not sure whether from fear for her life or the man who nudged her in the side, she followed the supposed leader into the lighted room. If nothing else, it was warm and dry.