Jerricho E-Book

Mayer Dale

• Herausgeber: Valley Publishing Ltd.
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Jerricho didn’t expect his first solo mission to send him to the Middle East nor to rescue his journalist ex-wife and her cameraperson. Finding out why they and the other women had been taken was horrifying in itself, but saving a larger group than he’d first expected then complicates the rescue in a much bigger way.

Brenna had hopes that her ex would show up, as she knew the type of work he did. She’d always wanted a chance to show him how much she’d changed. This was hardly the ideal time, but she might not get a second chance.

Rescuing the women and taking out the kidnappers should have been the end of it, until they realize it’s not as simple as it first seems. The women were objects initially; now they’re targets …

Leseprobe

Jerricho

The Mavericks, Book 14

Dale Mayer

Books in This Series:

Kerrick, Book 1

Griffin, Book 2

Jax, Book 3

Beau, Book 4

Asher, Book 5

Ryker, Book 6

Miles, Book 7

Nico, Book 8

Keane, Book 9

Lennox, Book 10

Gavin, Book 11

Shane, Book 12

Diesel, Book 13

Jerricho, Book 14

Killian, Book 15

Hatch, Book 16

Corbin, Book 17

Aiden, Book 18

The Mavericks, Books 1–2

The Mavericks, Books 3–4

The Mavericks, Books 5–6

The Mavericks, Books 7–8

The Mavericks, Books 9–10

The Mavericks, Books 11–12

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About This Book

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

About Killian

Author’s Note

Complimentary Download

About the Author

Copyright Page

About This Book

What happens when the very men—trained to make the hard decisions—come up against the rules and regulations that hold them back from doing what needs to be done? They either stay and work within the constraints given to them or they walk away. Only now, for a select few, they have another option:

The Mavericks. A covert black ops team that steps up and break all the rules … but gets the job done.

Welcome to a new military romance series by USA Today best-selling author Dale Mayer. A series where you meet new friends and just might get to meet old ones too in this raw and compelling look at the men who keep us safe every day from the darkness where they operate—and live—in the shadows … until someone special helps them step into the light.

Jerricho didn’t expect his first solo mission to send him to the Middle East nor to rescue his journalist ex-wife and her cameraperson. Finding out why they and the other women had been taken was horrifying in itself, but saving a larger group than he’d first expected then complicates the rescue in a much bigger way.

Brenna had hopes that her ex would show up, as she knew the type of work he did. She’d always wanted a chance to show him how much she’d changed. This was hardly the ideal time, but she might not get a second chance.

Rescuing the women and taking out the kidnappers should have been the end of it, until they realize it’s not as simple as it first seems. The women were objects initially; now they’re targets …

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Prologue

Jerricho Hickory came back from the fishing trip, a smile in his heart. He really had taken to fishing like he hadn’t ever expected. He would never be quite as addicted to the sport as Eva’s father Greg was, but Jerricho had gotten up every morning at 5:00 a.m. the past few days and couldn’t wait to get on that lake. They had even tried afternoon fishing and evening fishing. The joy of catching that first fish had hooked Jerricho for life. He had promised to come back soon and often. And that was a promise that he would thoroughly enjoy keeping.

As it was, he headed back to what appeared to be a soulless apartment now. After being at the cabin—where Jerricho, Greg, Eva, and Diesel were ensconced in Greg’s cabins and the joy in life and recuperating from exhaustion and the emotional impact of everything they’d been through—Jerricho found his apartment empty and without merit anymore.

He had never really cared about it before, but, just after this trip, it really got to him. As he sat here, out on his deck, a cold beer in his hand, his phone rang. He looked down to see Diesel as the Caller ID. “Hey, Diesel,” he said. “Did you catch any fish for me this morning?”

“Actually,” he said, “I caught my first trout.”

“Damn!” he said. “I’m so sad I had to leave.”

“Did you have to leave though?” he asked. “Couldn’t you have stayed?”

“I still have to get my life together,” he said. “You get to sit back and relax now. I’m not sure exactly what you’ll do with your life or what she’ll do with your life,” he said, chuckling, “but I just felt like it was time for me to leave.”

“What I’ll do now is,” he said, “usher you in your next mission.”

After a moment’s pause, he said, “Seriously?”

“Yep, seriously.”

“When?”

“Well, you better finish that beer in your hand,” he said in a dry tone.

“Shit! Are you watching me?”

“I wouldn’t be so intrusive,” he said, “but I have to tell you that’s what I do too, when I hit home. I pull out a beer and sit back on the deck.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m doing. So what happens when I finish this beer?”

“You’re heading out in less than three hours.”

“Crap!” he said. “I haven’t even done laundry.”

“First thing you do after a mission is,” he said, “you check out what you need to get done to leave again.”

“I didn’t have a chance yet. I’ve only been home a couple hours.”

“You got enough clothes?”

“If I don’t, you’ll find them for me, won’t you?”

“I absolutely will,” he said.

“So where am I going?” Jerricho asked.

“Switzerland is your initial landing spot,” Diesel said, with a laugh.

“Why?”

“I’d tell you, but I don’t want to ruin it for you.”

“What’ll ruin it for me?”

“Somebody you know is in trouble,” he said. “It came through official channels, but, when I recognized the name, I figured you’d want to know.”

“Who?” he asked, hopping to his feet. “Not too many people I care about in my world.”

Diesel said, “Yeah, I hear you there. And then I remembered the conversation we had with Eva.”

At that, Jerricho’s stomach sank. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Is it Brenna?”

“Yes, it is,” he said. “She was on a media trip. I didn’t realize she was a journalist.”

“I didn’t either. And what happened?”

“She and her cameraman have been kidnapped. They were on a trip through Switzerland, heading toward Libya. Obviously they didn’t make it. They have disappeared in the mountains.”

“Ah, hell,” he said. “Where’s her husband?”

“That’s the thing,” Diesel said. “I don’t have any record of a husband.”

“Last I heard, she was getting married,” he protested.

“Maybe you heard wrong, but she’s over there alone, except for the one cameraman with her.”

“Any … any other intel?”

“I’ll send it as soon as I get it,” he said. “You need to get a move on now.” And, with that, Diesel rang off.

Jerricho turned from his deck to look around at the small apartment through the open doorway and the nearby windows. Out loud he said, “Well, I didn’t like this place anyway.” He threw back the rest of his beer, quickly switched out the dirty clothes in his duffel bag with a clean batch, and was out the door. As he made it to the front curb, he considered taking his vehicle to the airport or calling for a ride.

When a vehicle raced toward him, he laughed. “Damn, I like this job.”

And, with that, he was gone.

Chapter 1

Jerricho Hickory exited the airplane in Switzerland, swearing, as his messages downloaded and, with them, new intel stated that Brenna had arrived in Libya, before disappearing. He would either continue on to Libya directly or to Malta first. Malta was a small place, and tourists were definitely noticed, but he could get a private flight or get onto a ship, then come in from the sea. Not to mention it would give him access to Libya and Tunisia, depending what the kidnappers’ plan was. Jerricho also didn’t have an exact location on Brenna’s current whereabouts. At this point she could be anywhere, with an end destination they hadn’t thought up yet.

He’d received a dossier from the Mavericks on Brenna’s life, and he’d read it with interest. He still had some major questions, like, what happened to the wedding that apparently didn’t happen? A part of him was sad for her, and yet a latent part was happy. After all, Brenna and Jerricho couldn’t make their marriage work, but he wanted her to be happy. However, at the same time, obviously something had gone completely screwy in her life because, last he heard, her wedding was imminent.

Not a whole lot to know about the supposedly male cameraman—Jessie? Usually a guy was named Jesse, while the gals were Jessie. Anyway the cameraman had been doing this job for six months and never had an issue. He was American, same as Brenna. Both worked at the same press outfit, and both had no ties to Libya or to all of North Africa or any of the nearby Middle Eastern countries that were rife with discord right now. Brenna and Jessie had been sent over by their outlet, one of the big news stations, and were supposed to be there for one week.

Four days in, on Thursday at 6:00 p.m., EST, Brenna had failed to report in to do a live newscast. After some scrambling, the press outlet realized nobody had seen either her or her cameraman since noon that same day. Assuming bad connections across the pond, nobody had worried about a couple hours’ delay. Four hours later they still assumed she would show up. When she didn’t, there hadn’t even been a serious concern, other than the fact that she wasn’t there for the broadcast.

When they couldn’t get a hold of Brenna the rest of the evening, they contacted local authorities. By morning everybody was on full alert. She hadn’t been seen in at least eighteen hours. Her cameraman Jessie had been missing for the same amount of time. The news station did have a notification that it looked like the two had been forced into a vehicle, somewhere around the one o’clock mark on Thursday, Libya time. The station was still trying to confirm that time and the exact location. Other than that, Brenna and Jessie had disappeared, and the station had received no ransom note.

Nothing.

As for the reason behind such a kidnapping, the news outlet had no clue, except that, over there, journalists often met with issues, political and otherwise. Always a coup going on somewhere. Always somebody at war with somebody else. As much as Jerricho hated to say it, he’d like to see journalists not go there at all. He understood freedom of the press and all, but too often the journalists met with endless bad results.

Brenna had been part of a large contingency with UN journalists and should have been safe, and he understood that she probably would have been jumping at the chance to go. But somehow she and her cameraman had slipped behind, been singled out, or had wandered off on their own and then had been targeted. The end result was everybody else was safe; those two were not.

Jerricho boarded the next flight without any issues, and he was still alone, wondering who would join him as his partner on this op. He’d gotten word that, when he landed, he would meet his partner. So far nobody had shown up on the plane beside him. When somebody cleared his throat behind him, Jerricho thought he might have recognized the characteristic rasp.

The stewardess came along, after the plane finally leveled out, and offered drinks. Jerricho accepted a bottle of water, listening intently to whoever was behind him, as he spoke with the flight attendant. The male voice held an almost musical note to it. Jerricho sat back and wondered. When a bottle of water was handed to the man behind Jerricho, the passenger said, “Thank you,” then reached forward with his bottle and said, “Good luck, mate.”

Jerricho immediately tapped his bottle and said, “Killian, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Wondered how long it would take you,” he said, with a heavy, thick, blimey accent.

Jerricho twisted in his seat, looked at him, shook his head, and said, “How could anybody even recognize you?”

“Ditto,” he said.

Jerricho had been traveling in disguise himself. If anybody in the know within these local terrorist groups had tracked Brenna’s whereabouts, they might have tracked her history to Jerricho. Therefore, traveling incognito was the best for everyone. “Do you know her?”

“No,” he said, “but I know you.”

“Right,” he said. Normally his friend had a bright carrot-top-orange hair to go along with the really thick bushy beard, but, right now, Killian was clean-shaven, and that bright orange had been darkened to a deep auburn. But it was hard to mistake the heavy frame, massive shoulders, and thick forearms. He’d been a boxer in his college years and had done very well for himself. And definitely had a little bit of a junkyard dog look to his face. “You know that you can change the hair all you want,” Jerricho muttered, “but …”

Killian chuckled. “Ain’t that the truth,” he said. “Only so much I can camouflage. Same for you. It’s not like you’ve changed your shape.”

They were both massive men, both heavy lifters, but it wasn’t a gym rat look. They were physically fit from years of doing heavy military work.

“Had no clue you were coming,” Jerricho muttered. But he was pleased. Killian was a good guy. They’d done several missions together.

“Nope, they like keeping secrets, keeping things compartmentalized,” he said. “I’m sending you some info.”

Jerricho settled back into his seat, unscrewed the cap on his bottle of water, and drank half of it in one gulp, as he waited for the information to flow. From then on they talked through the Mavericks’ chat window, until the flight landed. Jerricho walked through the airport with his duffel bag over his shoulder to see Killian off to the side, a good twenty feet away, but carrying almost identical bags. He thought to himself, No way to not know that we aren’t the same.

Outside, he walked into the rental office, made a few inquiries to pass the time, while he waited for an answer as to where they were headed. As soon as he stepped outside again, he checked his phone to see an incoming message. He typed a response and got the answer.

Malta.

Flight numbers were there, still another two hours away, but, because he’d left the airport itself, the one part of the gate he had to go back through was security, which was no problem. By the time he sat down on the flight to Malta, he saw Killian up ahead.

When they next exited an airport, Jerricho took several slow deep breaths because they had landed at four o’clock in the afternoon heat. His shirt was already drenched.

He grabbed his duffel once again, stepped out into Malta, and received yet another text. He ignored all the people eager to take him wherever he wanted to go and walked to where a black vehicle waited for him. He tossed his duffel in the back, hopped into the front driver’s seat, and, as he turned on the engine, Killian hopped in beside him.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“To the docks,” Jerricho said, “at the far end of the island.”

They stopped, picked up some food, and drove straight to the new location. He parked in the lot nearest the docks, picked up his duffel bag, left the keys under the seat, and headed down a long swinging dock to the water. At least one hundred boats, sailboats, motorboats, and everything in between were here. He headed to berth 23 and nodded his approval when he saw a good-size cruiser with a powerful engine.

Happily he hopped on board. He checked below deck, nobody anywhere. The boat was completely empty. As he came topside, Killian had already tossed the tether line free. Jerricho hopped up onto the platform, turned on the engine, and slowly putted their way out of the harbor.

Killian joined him at the top. “You got any maps?”

“Not yet,” Jerricho said. “I will though, as it looks like we won’t have an easy crossing.”

“No,” Killian said. “We’ve got word that there’s a good chance she was moved onto another ship.”

Jerricho looked at him, surprised. “Wow, okay. That might be an interesting scenario.”

“Our instructions are to find her and to retrieve her of course,” Killian added, “but … depending on who else is on board …”

“And it’ll be hard to sneak up on the kidnappers, if they’re in the middle of the ocean,” Jerricho said. “This is a powerboat, but I don’t want to go too far out into open water and have a major storm come up.”

“You’re not kidding,” he said. “It’s not like we have subs or any military equipment to get us underwater to a new location.”

“Nope, not at all,” Jerricho said. “Do we have a tracking location?”

“I’ve asked. Haven’t got word yet.”

Jerricho quickly went through his phone and checked for any more information, then sent off a message to Diesel. Need to know newest location. Need satellite images and some idea of where they’re heading.

On it.

Good. He pocketed his phone and changed places with Killian.

Killian piloted the boat, heading out in the ocean toward the Tunisian coast. “It’s quite possible,” he said, “that they’re just moving up and down the coastline.”

“It’s possible, but I still don’t understand why her.”

“It could be anything, from somebody liking her pretty face to hating journalists in general to wanting something that would give them leverage.”

“Which isn’t necessarily of any help.”

“Honestly it could also be the white slave trade,” Killian said. “Always a factor with two women together.”

Jerricho looked at him. “Two women? I thought Jessie was male.”

“No. Female. No picture was in the file, but I looked it up.”

“And the file says he,” Jerricho said. “Let’s double-check.” Jerricho quickly sent off messages, and, when the report came back later, Jessie was determined to be a she. Dammit, he typed, you need to fix that dossier. That changes things.

“Funny how just making sure that they’re both female completely changes some of the motivations for the kidnappers,” Killian noted.

“And not in a good way,” Jerricho said, “not in a good way at all.”

Brenna lifted her head and looked around at their heavy canvas covering that barely classified as a tent. They had no water to drink and had been moving on the boat for hours, until they were stopped and tossed in here. Now the sun baked them, and they were dying of thirst. She looked at Jessie. “How are you holding up?”

Jessie shook her head, smiled, and said, “I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll be fine because we are fine or because we have no choice but to be fine?” she corrected.

“World we live in,” Jessie said, shifting her position on the floor.

“Which is why we were supposed to be reporting all this for the world at large, so they would know what goes on.”

“So what happened?” Jessie asked. “We’re supposed to be pros. How did this happen?”

“We got separated from the crowd.”

“I think that was deliberate,” Jessie said, her face contemplative.

“I think so too. I think two of our guides, our protective detail, separated from us.”

“But why?”

“No reason that I can think of,” she said. “We’re both media but not exactly one of the largest of the news corporations. Yet we’re Americans and maybe the only Americans there. Maybe we were singled out for that.”

“Or because we’re both females,” Jessie said quietly.

“I’m trying not to think about that,” Brenna said. “We have enough on our plate right now.”

“I know,” she said, “but this isn’t exactly politically motivated, from what I can see.”

“We can’t count on that either,” she said. “The fact is, we’ve been traveling steadily by boat, with no understanding of where or why. Now we’ve stopped for the heat, got out of the water, where all that thermal activity is just amplified, not to mention the sunlight reflected off the ocean either. Everybody’ll just relax for a while, and then we’ll pick up and move again.”

“But move where?”

“I don’t know. I thought we would be on that ship for a long time.” A terrifying incarceration in itself.

Just then, the covering was thrown back, and water was tossed at them in one of those weird cloth bags, but Brenna quickly opened it and took a big long drink. She passed it to Jessie and warned her. “I know we’re thirsty, but we have to consider that we might need to conserve this.”

From the light shining through the opening, even as the guard stood there, Brenna saw the ocean ahead. “We hardly even got away from the dock.”

“Maybe we’re going back on another boat,” Jessie murmured.

And no truer words were said. It wasn’t very long that they were stood up again. Whatever covering that they had had was completely deflated, and they were moved onto a four-wheel-drive vehicle, which took them to the docks and a new ship.

“That’s why we were on land,” Jessie said. “They were waiting for this boat to come.”

This one looked like junk, something put together with baling wire and twine. Brenna’s heart sank when she saw it. “Jesus,” Brenna said, “we won’t even get a life vest with this sucker, will we?”

“How well do you swim?” Jessie asked.

“I was on the swim team,” she said, “but swimming in a pool in a controlled environment versus out here in a panic, where Mother Nature is known for bringing up storms that will crash the biggest of ships,” she said, “not so good.”

“Right, completely different circumstances.”

They were shoved forward, as Brenna turned to look at one of the men and asked, “Why?” He pointed at the ship down there and barked out orders in English. She nodded and kept walking. Then she turned back to him, and she asked, “Where are we going?” She was struck immediately across the face. Crying out, she buckled under the blow. But she wasn’t given a chance to say anything more. Instead she was grabbed by both shoulders, brought to her feet again, and forced forward.

Jessie immediately told her, “Don’t talk.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Brenna muttered, as they were forced down the long ramp toward their newest transport. There she took a look at the men’s faces, the men helping these guys, and realized, with a sinking heart, that no future was here for her. Not a good future anyway. Smirks abounded, not one ounce of sympathy. When she hesitated, a heavy rifle butt slammed against her shoulder. And she fell onto the ramp.

The men around her burst out laughing.

Chapter 2

Brenna slowly got up, made her way on board with Jessie, who was much smaller than Brenna was. They were pushed and prodded along, led to a partitioned-off section of a cargo hold. She sat down in the far corner and whispered, “Dear God, what have we gotten ourselves into?”

“I don’t know,” Jessie said. “But did it ever occur to you that there’s room enough in here for hundreds of people?”

“Like an old slave-trading boat, yes,” she murmured. “Or ones moving immigrants.”

“All those boats that were charging people for safe passage.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s probably what this was used for. Although it’s not happening quite so much anymore,” she added. “Or we don’t hear as much about it now.”

“I wonder about that,” Jessie said. “What exactly is going on here? Do you think anybody’s looking for us?”

“Absolutely they are,” she murmured. “I just don’t know how quickly our bosses realized we were missing.”

Jessie dropped her head to her knees. “I really don’t want to die this way.”

“Neither do I,” Brenna said quietly. But, in her mind, she knew that there were a whole lot worse things than dying. At the moment it looked like they were heading to one of those ends. She wiped the hair off her forehead, then whispered, “Please, somebody come rescue us.”