Seal of Honor(48)
Quinn’s chest tightened as he ducked inside the hut Gabe’s phone had led them to, half expecting to see his best friend in a similar state as the kid out front. God, he didn’t know how he’d react if—
The hut was empty.
Quinn covered his eyes with one shaking hand and felt the warm weight of Jean-Luc’s palm come down on his shoulder. “It’s okay, mon ami. This is a good thing.”
Right. A good thing that Gabe wasn’t dead on the dirt floor of this hut. Right.
Feeling ridiculous, Quinn shook off Jean-Luc’s hand and cleared his throat. “Contact Harvard and see if the phone’s moved.”
Jean-Luc stepped out of the hut for better reception, which gave Quinn some much-needed privacy. He bent over and placed his hands on his knees, sucking in three long breaths.
Gabe was okay. Gabe. Was. Okay. He wasn’t dead. Quinn hadn’t lost another loved one. Not yet. Not yet.
Jean-Luc came back inside and cleared his throat softly.
Quinn straightened so fast all the blood rushed from his head, making him dizzy as fuck. “Well?”
“Harvard says the phone hasn’t moved. He says, from your phone’s signal, it looks like you’re standing right on top of it.”
They both looked around. A feedbag lay in the middle of the floor, cut apart, its oats scattered. There were also the remnants of a boot nearby.
Quinn squatted down and, using his knife, picked up the boot. Someone had unlaced it then sliced each side open.
“Gabe’s?” Jean-Luc asked.
“Yeah. Man, his foot’s probably all kinds of fucked up right now.”
Dropping the boot, Quinn balanced his elbows on his knees and stared at the pile of feedbags. If the boot hadn’t been moved from the spot it landed, that meant Gabe must have been lying back on those bags when Audrey—he assumed it was Audrey—had cut it off. So it was entirely possible the phone slipped out of his pocket, especially if this is where he’d slept last night. Quinn stood and ran his hand through every crack and crevasse between the bags.
Bingo. Gabe’s phone. He flipped it open, saw the battery icon blinking red in warning, and powered it down. A second later, Harvard came over the radio.
“Achilles, Harvard. Over.”
Quinn held out a hand for the radio. “Harvard, Achilles. Send your traffic.” They’d decided en route that they’d use their nicknames for all radio contact in case someone was listening.
“Be advised, I lost Stonewall’s signal,” Harvard said. “Repeat, I lost Stonewall’s signal. How copy?”
Quinn looked at the dead phone in his hand and sighed. “That’s a good copy. Out.” He started to hand the radio back to Jean-Luc, but instead hit the talk button again to find out Ian and Jesse’s location. “Boomer, Achilles. What’s your twenty? Over.”
“Headed your way,” Ian’s voice said a second later. “With a present. Out.”
Quinn and Jean-Luc shared a worried look.
“Is it just me,” Jean-Luc said, “or did Ian sound waaay too happy?”
Yeah, he’d had a peculiar ring of…glee in his voice. Christ, what had that psycho done now? Quinn had thought that by pairing Jesse with Ian, the mostly sensible medic would dilute the EOD expert’s particular brand of sociopathy.
Apparently not.
Shaking his head, Quinn strode to the door, more than a little afraid of what he might find waiting outside. Ian was dragging a bound, naked, and mutilated Colombian man across the camp like a recalcitrant puppy while Jesse walked behind, tight-lipped.
Disapproval and concern for the injured man rolled off the medic in pulses. “Okay, Dr. Lector, you can stop torturing him anytime now.”
Quinn felt the same way. He was not so noble that he wouldn’t use whatever means necessary to get what he wanted, but there was a line he wouldn’t cross. From the looks of things, Ian had crossed it and then some.
“Ian,” he said very softly, putting an edge of steel in his voice. “Let him go.”
Ian didn’t listen. Big surprise. He knocked the man to his knees, gripped his dark hair, and yanked his head back. Only then did the battered face covered in blood and snot ring a familiar bell.
“Recognize him?” Ian asked. When nobody answered, he scowled. “Did none of you read Harvard’s reports?” He jerked on the guy’s hair hard enough to make him cry out. “Meet Cocodrilo, the EPC’s general of the Amazon region. And he’s been quite talkative. In English, even. Told me some very interesting things you guys just might want to hear.”
Ian let Cocodrilo drop to a sobbing heap on the ground and brushed his hands together. He arched a brow at Jesse. “You can apologize for that Hannibal Lector crack anytime now.”