Page 2 of Rescue Me (Tempting SEALs 6.10)

“I’m not resisting,” she said, her voice, to someone who had studied her for months, slightly uneven. “I’m not fighting. There’s no need to hurt me again. Call whoever’s in charge and we ca—”

Her words were cut off wit

h a choked scream as the man grabbed her hair, using her sassy ponytail as a handle, yanking her head back, leaving her arched throat naked and vulnerable.

Light glinted off the blade as he yelled his displeasure, his angry spit splattering her face.

Sam’s heart did a double tap as the scalpel carved another thin red line on the smooth skin, this time her cheek. Three goddamn strikes and you’re out, dick. Cool it, he told himself, almost jumping out of his skin with the need to act.

Now.

But his training told him that while the guy was cutting Beth, the cuts were small and not life-threatening. Not to Beth. To the guy making them, it was a death sentence. The son of a bitch wasn’t going to kill her, Sam rationalized, sweat beading his brow. The grunt with the scalpel wasn’t high enough up the food chain for one thing, and for another, someone had brought a doctor here for a specific purpose. Hopefully he’d find out the who and why before Scalpel-dick got any more aggressive with that blade and he was forced to kill him sooner rather than later.

Intel had reported that Nkemidilm wasn’t in residence. He was off with his troops fighting the Mallaruzi on Huren’s western border. Huren was also in the middle of a bloody, and extremely violent, civil war. The body count was sky high. Nkemidilm was a megalomaniacal sadist and was fighting with damn well everyone in and out of his country. He’d trained in Russia, his army carried American-made weapons, and he had absolutely no regard for human life. His allies were no better.

The cold air blasting around Sam did nothing to cool his temper nor did it dispel the fear churning in his gut as he watched the tableau beneath his hiding place.

Nervous perspiration made Beth’s creamy skin look dewy, touchable. They’d let her remove the jacket to her black pantsuit, and her long-sleeved pink blouse was half untucked, sticking to her skin and smeared with dirt and blood. Even mussed she was sexy. She should be back home in Montana in her small clinic, dispensing suckers to damp-eyed kids and wearing the all-encompassing white coat of her profession. And giving him a hard time.

He’d tried talking her out of attending the medical symposium in Cape Town when they’d “accidentally” bumped into each other at the bank two weeks ago. South Africa was a country in flux. Not safe for tourists just yet, and counted as one of the most dangerous places in the world. Yet in spite of, or because of his warnings, she’d gone anyway.

Who’d taken Beth, and what the hell did they want with her? No. Not Beth. Dr. Lynne Randall. All Dr. Randall, safely sequestered in a local safe-house, could tell them was that Beth had gone upstairs to pick up some notes for her. Beth had been snatched moments after entering Randall’s room.

Thank God his people in the Cape had been smart enough to squash the story from the press. None of the bad guys knew they’d kidnapped the wrong woman.

“If no one in charge is coming, then I’m—”

One of the soldiers answered in Hureni. Sam didn’t speak the language, and clearly neither did Beth.

Just her eyes moved as she addressed the anesthetist standing across the room. “Do you speak English?”

He gave her a blank stare and her attention returned to the man with the blade at her throat, who was still yelling at her. “I have no idea what you’re saying,” she told him crisply, raising her voice just enough to get his attention. Her hand must have hurt like hell, but she wasn’t paying it any attention.

Scalpel-dick yelled louder, inches from her face. Louder didn’t mean she could comprehend him any better.

The door opened and he shut up like a tap being turned off. The rest of the soldiers in the room snapped to, straight-backed, weapons at the ready-attention. Sam already had the Sig aimed at the potential new danger.

His heart skittered.

Shit.

The Butcher. Tau Thadiwe.

The terrorist was currently on every country’s Capture Dead or Alive list. Six feet seven inches of solid muscle, with skin the color of dusty ebony, and currently dressed, unselfconsciously, in a short white hospital gown. Flip-flops snapping on his enormous feet, he strode into the room surrounded by a phalanx of soldiers.

If anyone was worse than Nkemidilm it was his old friend Thadiwe. The two men shared an alliance that went back to their covert training days in Russia some thirty years ago. The counterterrorist group Sam worked for was aware that Thadiwe was responsible for doing a little extracurricular work after his and Nkemidilm’s basic training ended. Torture was both Thadiwe’s specialty and his passion, and he’d educated Huren’s leader in the fine art of persuasion until both men were feared and revered for their sadistic skills.

The man was an amoral psychopath. Not only was he chillingly good at what he did, he relished his work.

Speculation had been rife about his whereabouts for months. And here he was. Deep in the jungle where no one would think to look. Thadiwe and Nkemidilm had done a damn good job keeping their friendship off the radar. They hadn’t been seen together since 1996.

“Dr. Randall, thank you for coming,” Thadiwe said in unaccented English. Sam didn’t know if he felt better or worse getting the confirmation that they’d snatched the wrong doctor.

Thadiwe approached Beth but didn’t extend his hand, nor did he instruct his men to stand down. Suddenly he noticed her still bleeding hand. Hard to fucking miss since the left side of her pink blouse was stained red. The tango scowled.

“I wasn’t aware that I had a choice,” Beth said dryly. “Please tell this man to put the scalpel down. I’m no threat.”

Thadiwe turned on the man beside her who still had the scalpel at her throat.

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