Read Online First Strike by Pamela Clare - Free Book Online Page A

over his shoulder, found the guys staring after him. “My favorite news program.”
    Ross grinned. “I think he’s got a thing for the Baghdad Babe.”
    God, Javier hated that nickname!
    He glared at Ross. “I like to keep up with world news and current events.”
    Snickers.
    Okay, so they weren’t buying that.
    On the screen, Laura’s anchor, Gary Chapin, was introducing the topic of the night’s program, his helmet hair looking as stiff as it always did, an image of Laura in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
    Two months had gone by, and still he could remember her scent, her taste, the feel of her skin, the sound of her laughter, the gleam in her eyes. He hadn’t given up on his plan to track down her contact info. Oh, no. He’d just gotten busy.
    The guys crowded around him to watch.
    And then she was on the screen, looking gorgeous, just like he remembered, her long, pale blond hair held back by a barrette.
    “Yeah, she is fine!”
    “Hot.”
    “Do you think she’s a screamer?”
    Their words made Javier’s teeth grind.
    ¡Pendejos estupidos! Stupid assholes!
    She looked into the camera, speaking with confidence, her voice soft but strong as steel as she explained how thousands of women died each year, burned to death by their husbands and in-laws so that their husbands could remarry, winning for themselves another woman’s dowry. Though the dowry system was supposed to be illegal, the law was ignored. And in most cases, these horrible deaths were not investigated.
    “That’s fucking sick,” Murphy said.
    “Shhh!” Javier didn’t want to listen to Murphy.
    He wanted to hear Laura.
    “In the past five years, Sabira Mukhari’s organization has documented more than seven thousand five hundred cases of women being burned in ‘stove accidents’ within a two-hundred-mile radius around Islamabad and—”
    A nearby door burst open, making Laura jump.
    Rat-at-at-at-at-at!
    AK fire.
    On the TV screen, Laura screamed, dropped to the floor.
    “What the fuck?” Javier was on his feet.
    Men shouted in English and Arabic, her security team scrambling.
    “Cover her! Cover her!”
    A man in a black T-shirt threw himself over Laura, shielding her.
    From somewhere, an M16 cut loose, and Javier thought one of the attackers was hit. But a man cried out, and the M16 went silent.
    “Son of a fucking bitch!” Javier took two strides toward the TV screen, fists clenched, before he realized there was nothing—not a goddamned thing—he could do.
    Her security detail was being massacred.
    Rat-at-at-at-at-at!
    More AK fire.
    “Go, Laura!” A man cried out, groaned, blood spraying across the camera lens, women’s screams coming from the background.
    Out of view, Laura shouted to the other women in English, then in a language Javier didn’t understand, terror in her voice. “Run! Get out! Go!”
    But AK fire and screams told him that not all of them would make it.
    Then two men dressed like Taliban or AQ operatives—olive green BDUs, head scarves—grabbed Laura off the floor, their bodies blocking the camera’s view.
    ¡Madre de dios, no!
    “Leave her the fuck alone!” Javier shouted. “Jesus Christ!”
    He’d have given anything in the world to be there right now.
    “No!” She kicked, screamed, seemed to fight with all her might as they carried her toward the door. “ Nooo! ”
    And then she was gone.
    The station shifted back to a stunned Gary Chapin.
    Chills slid down Javier’s spine, his gut churning. “ Bella! ”
     
     
    Two days after her abduction, an Al-Qaeda splinter group headed by a fucker named Abu Nayef Al-Nassar took credit for abducting Laura—and claimed to have decapitated her.
    The news struck Javier with the force of a grenade. He drifted through the day, feeling sick, doing his best to guide the men through the second day of their workup, trying to turn grief into anger.
    “Shit like this is why we fight,” he told them with a calm he did not feel.
    It was only when he