Blindsided (A Mitch Kearns Combat Tracker Novel Book 4) Read online

  Blindsided

  By

  JT Sawyer

  Copyright

  Copyright December 2016 by JT Sawyer

  No part of this book may be transmitted in any form whether electronic, recording, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction and the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, incidents, or events is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Join JT Sawyer’s Facebook page to follow his book research and to get updates on future releases. You can also receive information on survival tips by signing up for my email notices at http://www.jtsawyer.com

  "Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." Matthew 25:40

  Prologue

  Eleven Years Earlier

  Sierra Leone, Africa

  Anatoly Leitner had experienced most every type of pain in his long career as a clandestine operative with the Mossad but none made his soul throb with regret more than the cold-blooded killing of another man at close range. As he scanned the approaching ravine through the green glow of his night-vision goggles, he could see two sentries strolling along the jagged terrain—men he knew would soon be lying face down in the sand. He gave the hand signal to pause to his two colleagues behind him, each of them squatting low and clutching their suppressed UZIs.

  Anatoly’s five-man Mossad team had secreted along the coast an hour earlier and he knew that the tactical advantage of darkness would be lost soon with the coming of dawn. Their mission had come together hastily with the intel they’d been provided the day before. Their objective was to insert along the coast and make their way inland one mile to an encampment of alluvial diamond miners who had abducted an Israeli physician doing humanitarian work at a nearby village. Two of Anatoly’s men remained behind at the raft to provide comms and overwatch.

  The Milky Way splayed out across the night sky had a way of making Anatoly momentarily ignore the adrenaline pulsing through his veins. Kneeling to his right was Uri Belkin, a seasoned veteran of special operations. The two men had joined the Mossad at the same time twelve years earlier and had served together on many fronts. As time went by, there was a subtle amount of friction building between them from Anatoly’s promotion up to a command position while Uri was passed over for his constant insubordination to his superiors back in Israel. Uri was shrewd, with an exceptional IQ, but it often ran amok during briefings with politicians back in Tel Aviv.

  To Anatoly’s left was Victor Hughes. Victor was a few years older than both of his colleagues and had also racked up more injuries than either man. He was a sinewy figure with a lengthy scar on his neck and arms from pulling a wounded man from a burning tank in Libya years ago. Victor was the quiet, analytical one whose cyber-skills with a computer were a close match to his operational abilities in the field. Victor was already in the Mossad when Anatoly joined but the man’s only interest was in the next mission, rather than being in charge of the implementation of it.

  The three of them lowered to their bellies and scanned the terrain ahead. In addition to the two guards below, they could see eight other men armed with AKs who were stirring the two-dozen workers sleeping in clusters near a thicket. To the right of this was a rickety shack of corrugated tin and a large canvas tent beside a relatively new Mercedes Benz truck.

  In the center of the main camp was a small river that ran down from the foothills to the north. Scattered around the waterway were an array of shovels, picks, buckets, and sieves. The entire operation was typical of low-tech diamond mining operations in West Africa. Small accumulations of diamonds were often found in geologic deposits containing kimberlite rock formations that were located in rivers and streams. Compared to the large-scale operations of mines owned by corporations, these alluvial deposits were easy for a small labor force to extract and often flew under the radar of the government. One militia leader and a group of a dozen armed men could sweep into a river basin where kimberlite was identified and use slave labor to extract the raw diamonds over a few weeks. Then they would pack up and move to another location a valley away to begin anew.

  “Very simple but very efficient,” whispered Uri as he studied the encampment below.

  “And very brutal,” Anatoly said, pointing to a heap of rotting corpses at the edge of the camp. “These workers out here probably won’t make it more than a few weeks under these conditions, which is why they probably abducted our good doctor in the first place—to prolong their lives.”

  “What the hell was he doing in this shithole country in the first place?” said Uri. “If I was a doctor, I’d be set up with a nice clinic in Tel Aviv, not sweating my ass out in this sandbox.”

  “He was probably doing humanitarian work at the refugee camps that are suffering from the spillover from Liberia,” said Victor.

  “This whole country is a fucking refugee camp,” said Uri. “Maybe even the whole continent. Some warlord is always ethnically cleansing his next door neighbor in one part of Africa or another, then people like this self-righteous doctor think they’ll go in and make a dent in the region. Hell, next month we’ll probably be rescuing another dumb-ass citizen of ours from these parts after things fall further apart in Liberia.” He spit at a lizard on the rock beside him. “The indigenous peoples here have no appreciation of the things you and I take for granted.”

  Anatoly pointed to the clump of slaves being roused by the guards. “I’m sure those poor souls down there would disagree.” He elbowed Uri in the arm. “You are way too jaded, my friend. There is still good in the world—if you care enough to look for it.”

  Victor shrugged his shoulders. “Besides, Uri, we’d be out of a job if that self-righteous doctor down there didn’t need rescuing.”

  Anatoly looked at his watch. “Sunrise in thirty minutes. According to the satellite images we reviewed earlier, the change of guard will take place shortly after that. We need to move in closer to the encampment so we can take advantage of that switchover and grab the doctor.”

  “And then we hightail it to the beach and we’ll be sitting back at HQ in Israel by the end of the day,” said Victor with a grin. “Makes your head spin sometimes, going from a place like this then back to our homes in eighteen hours.”

  “Hopefully, I will be able to make it to Devorah’s graduation ceremony tomorrow tonight. I promised her I would be there.”

  “We all did,” said Victor. “Fools that we are, given our jobs.”

  The three of them squat-walked along the jumbled boulder field for twenty minutes until they were at the edge of the miners’ camp. With the coming of dawn, they all flipped off their NVGs and stowed them in their packs.

  “We’ll go down to the headmaster’s shack first. That’s the most likely place the doctor will be held,” said Anatoly, unslinging his UZI. “Either there or…” He paused as he saw movement to his right. The Israeli physician was being escorted towards an area outside the main camp where there were two parallel wooden planks that straddled a three-foot-diameter pit. There was a primitive latrine nestled in a U-shaped enclosure of boulders which afforded privacy on three sides.

  “Even better,” said Victor. “We can take out the guards there and be off with the doc before anyone knows he’s missing.”

  Uri removed his fixed blade and looked at Anatoly. “Victor, you provide overwatch while Uri and I take care of things below.”

  Anatoly slid down the other side of the sand dune, followed by Uri. They came
up on either side of the boulders, splitting off once they entered the rear of the latrine. At Anatoly’s hand gesture, they both sprinted past the doctor, who was beginning to unbuckle his belt beside the latrine, and rushed at the back of the guards. Anatoly drove his blade into the C4 region of the stocky figure while cupping his hand around the mouth to muffle any noise. Uri opted for a more vicious execution and struck the other guard in the side of the throat then continuously pumped his blade into the neck, stirring the blade vigorously during the last thrust. As the man collapsed into the bloody pool beneath him, Uri glanced over at Anatoly.

  “What the hell was that move. You should’ve just dropped him quickly,” said Anatoly, racing back towards the doctor, who was hastily pulling up his trousers.

  “He’s in hell now the same as yours,” he said with a faint grin.

  Anatoly grabbed the frantic and sunburned physician by the arm just before his knees buckled. “Doctor Samuel Baruch, we are with the Israeli military, here to get you out.”

  “Thank God, thank God! It’s been a week and I am certain they were going to kill me after they were done mining here.”

  Anatoly raised his finger to his closed lips to quiet the man then tugged on his arm to get him moving. “This way; we have a boat not far from here that will take you to safety.”

  He began to trot behind the two commandos but then froze in place and pointed over his shoulder. “But the other captives—we can’t just leave them here.”

  “That’s not our objective,” said Uri. “Besides, there’s not enough room in the raft.”

  “Those are innocent people back there—good men who don’t deserve to die like this.”

  Anatoly yanked on the man’s arm. “Come, we must go now. When we get back to the ship, I’ll see what can be done about the others.”

  Uri smirked and shook his head, casting a disapproving glance at Anatoly. The three of them jogged around the boulders and over the line of sand dunes until they rejoined Victor. Then they began the arduous trek back over the undulating terrain until they reached the beach and their boat team.

  Anatoly helped Baruch climb into the tiny raft then waved off the two other men. “Take him back to the ship then come back for us in an hour to the secondary extraction point.”

  “What are you doing?” said Victor, standing knee-deep in the surf. “We have orders to get back with the doctor.”

  “It’s called mission creep,” said Uri. “Where the team leader goes off to follow his own fucking agenda because he can.”

  “You saw those people back there,” said Anatoly. “They’ll be feeding the hyenas in a few days.” He directed a hard stare back at Uri. “And just so you’re not worried, it’ll be my ass that gets chewed out back at command, not yours.”

  Anatoly continued pushing the bow of the raft into the waves. “One hour,” he yelled, then turned back to the beach and began trotting along the route they’d just taken. He thought of the ramifications he could face from his higher-ups for violating the mission parameters. For the first time in years, he didn’t care. He’d been in too many situations in his long career where following orders didn’t always translate to doing the right thing. He felt his psyche being pulled back towards the encampment like a magnetic needle incalculably pointing north.

  “Ah, hell, why not?” said Victor, following behind. “I’ve still got a few miles left in my creaky old knees. All command can do is bench me behind a computer for my last few years.”

  “Only one reason to go back to a diamond mine,” shouted Uri as he broke into a jog behind the two men. “And it ain’t just to liberate the slaves.”

  Chapter 1

  Present Day

  Tel Aviv, Israel

  The nightly rib-crushing nightmare was always the same for Dev. She was standing in an alley behind an industrial complex outside of L.A., a smattering of blood dappled over her leather jacket. As the staccato of gunfire in the distance lessened, she saw her father staggering towards her, clutching his chest as his shirt blossomed with crimson from the gunshot wound. She felt her own chest heave and she rushed towards him as he collapsed into her arms near a stack of weathered pallets.

  Looking into his eyes, she could see the light slipping away as it had nearly a year ago during a fierce battle in the U.S where Anatoly had met his end. Her hands floundered for something nebulous beyond her grasp—all she wanted was to reach into his soul and tether him to this world, but the gaping wound was too great. She saw the pavement turning red beneath her. It began to rise over her legs as she shouted at Anatoly to get up. The entire alley was melting and the buildings around her were crumbling as she held his trembling body. Dev felt her lungs burn as she tried to pick him up, his eyelids fluttering and finally closing. She forced out a breath then yelled at him not to leave her. Dev looked up at the roof tiles spiraling down at her. She felt her arms lighten then looked down and saw Anatoly sliding out of her grip and being carried away by the melting foundation beneath her. Dev ran forward and desperately clutched at him. “Don’t leave me, Poppa,” she screamed in the voice of a little girl, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  She shot upright in her bed, grasping the sheets in a cold sweat. Dev gasped for air and looked around the bedroom, feeling like a deep-sea diver that had just returned from an abyss.

  She ran a trembling hand through her hair then reached over for a gold pendant on the nightstand beside the bed. It was a finely etched figure of the Greek god Poseidon clutching a trident, his head tilted upwards. Anatoly had given it to her last summer after returning from a trip and had joked that Poseidon always watched over him during his time in Greece.

  She placed the pendant back down and pulled the green bedsheets around her like a cocoon. Scooching back into the headboard until she couldn’t move any further, she raised her knees to her chest. Not much point in trying to get back to sleep. Dev tried to convince herself to start the day as the first rosy rivulets of dawn forced their way past the window blind. Should review the mission notes for Romania one more time, I guess.

  She heard the bathroom door open and then saw Mitch emerge, the steam from the shower enveloping his muscular frame. He was clad in a pair of running shorts and had just finished pulling on a tank top when he stopped and stared at her. “Another rough night?”

  Dev sniffled and wiped the remaining tears off her face with her forearm then gripped the edge of the bed with her other hand, her knuckles turning white as her fingernails bit into the fabric. “It never ends. It just never ends,” she whispered.

  He sat down on the bed, resting one hand on her shoulder then tracing it up to her face, where he gently brushed aside a lock of her dark hair. “How about I make breakfast then we get out of here for a while? We’ve got a few hours before your briefing at Gideon and I could take you down to that park outside of the city.”

  She nodded then reached her hand up to his neck, pulling him closer. Dev rested her forehead against his, smelling the olive oil soap on his skin from the shower. She felt her heart rate settle down as she pulled him closer. Their past six months of living together in Tel Aviv had been blissful. Mitch had moved into her two-bedroom townhouse and was working as an occasional contractor at Gideon. Their rescue missions together had been both personally rewarding and financially profitable. Mitch’s skills as an operator and tracker had rounded out her team nicely and working with him closely had only strengthened their already considerable bond; but it hadn’t lessened the nightly demons that haunted her. It was a constant tug-of-war to stay afloat emotionally with one part of her wanting to lose herself in the relationship with the man she loved and the other feeling like she was about to be swallowed by the riptide of lingering guilt that reverberated throughout her being with the approaching anniversary of Anatoly’s death. Torn between two worlds and two men she loved dearly, Dev felt that her soul was continually being stretched beyond its carrying capacity.

  She pulled Mitch closer, kissing him on the lips and letting the bedsh
eet fall away from her naked figure. His eyes widened with surprise then he slid towards her as Dev lifted up his tank top. As he went to embrace her, she removed her hands from his shirt and slid back. “I’m sorry, I’m…I…I shouldn’t have started anything. I’m not sure what I’m doing right now.” He moved in closer, lowering his chin to kiss her but she moved towards the other side of the bed and stood up, grabbing her blue sweats and sliding them on, followed by a black t-shirt.

  Mitch’s eyes darted around the ceiling then back at her as he bit his lower lip. “But I thought you…”

  “Look, I…I want to be with you but I just can’t.” She blew out a breath between her quivering lips. “I’m sorry for confusing you.” Her mind was racing as she tried to submerge a flurry of conflicting emotions. What the hell is wrong? Get a grip on yourself. She was always used to being in control of her life but lately it was like a tempest was raging unabated in her heart and the safety of the shoreline was fading from her reach. At times, her feelings for Mitch seemed intertwined with her guilt over her father’s passing, the two planes of emotion colliding whenever she started to embrace the good in her life. Deep down she also felt resentment for the responsibilities she had thrust upon her after Anatoly’s death. Managing the day-to-day affairs of a corporation was taxing enough but she also had the pressure of working in a high-risk occupation where a mistake could cost the life of a client being held hostage abroad. During the past year of never-ending work commitments, Dev had never had the time to truly grieve and work through her tangled feelings and now that web seemed to have dropped from the sky, its sticky tethers pulling her backwards with each step she tried to take forward in her personal life.

  Dev paced at the foot of the bed as she crossed her arms in front of her, then she went to the nightstand and grabbed her phone. Stuffing it in her back pocket, she reached for her folding knife, followed by the keys for the company-owned SUV. She leaned over Mitch and pulled him in close to her chest. She rested her chin upon his head and ran her hands over his bristly hair. Dev was in love with Mitch on a level she had never known before but her feelings were always counter-balanced by the festering wound of losing her father and the guilt that came with undertaking a mission that resulted in his death. If only she could go back and undo what had happened. She looked at Mitch and realized they probably never would have met if it weren’t for that fortuitous day in Arizona. Though she projected herself as the powerhouse behind Gideon in public, these past few weeks she felt like a prisoner in a self-made purgatory whose lock seemed unbreachable. Have to get out of here for a while. Just need to be outside.