Page 86 of Keeping Laryn
“At the chopper on the right. Under the nose.”
“How many guards are there?”
That was the weird thing. Casper didn’t see anyone standing around with rifles or any other weapons, forcing anyone to work.
As he continued to watch, he was further confused by how…normalthe scene looked. Laryn occasionally said something to a worker nearby, and that person would bring her some sort of tool. It literally looked like any other workday for her. Casper had seen her do the same things day after day while working on his own MH-60.
A moment of doubt assailed him. Was this not a kidnapping? Had he misunderstood the entire situation? Had Larynplannedthis? She’d been the one to insist on staying inside the helicopter on the destroyer. She could’ve easily loosened the wires to the FLIR, then planned to jump in and save the day. She also could’ve passed along intel on where the extraction would be taking place.
But almost as soon as he had the thought, Casper dismissed it. Thanks to Tex, they’d found the men responsible for betraying their mission and sabotaging their choppers. And even if they hadn’t, there was no way Laryn could’ve known they’d be landing. No possible way to know about the SEALs getting separated from their group. No way she’d betray her country. Anddefinitelyno way she would’ve put so many people in danger, just to take a new job.
No. She would’ve simply put in her resignation and flown to Turkey of her own accord.
Ashamed that he’d doubted Laryn for even one second, Casper continued to survey the hangar. He studied the workers around the helicopter. Many looked malnourished and skinny. They didn’t meet anyone’s eyes and there was no banter being exchanged back and forth between any of the workers. The hangar back home was a loud place when the mechanics were in there working. Lots of trash talk and joking around.
The men working here seemed as if they’d rather be anywhere else. And now that he was paying closer attention, there were a few men dressed in the same uniform shirt and pants as Laryn, who didn’t seem to fit in with the other mechanics. They were muscular, tall, their gazes constantly sweeping the large room.
It wasn’t obvious what they were looking for…unless they were there to make sure everyone was doing their jobs and no one tried to leave.
Frowning, feeling stupid, Casper realized for the first timethat this wasn’t a regular military operation. This was forced labor.
Osman was essentially a contractor for the government, and he apparently did whatever it took to keep his employers—the government—happy with his work. Including forcing men to work long hours for probably very little pay, and a few threats against their loved ones thrown in for good measure. The government might not even know one of their contractors had gone rogue and was kidnapping men and women to work for him.
Feeling better that perhaps the Turkish government wasn’t falling back on Stalin-like practices from the Soviet era, Casper focused on Laryn.
She didn’t smile, didn’t try to make conversation with anyone—it was likely no one could understand her, or vice versa, anyway—and seemed to be working in one particular area under the nose of the chopper for a very long time.
Then it occurred to Casper what she was doing.
She was stalling.
Yes, there was a lot of sensitive tech equipment under the nose, but that stuff wasn’t her area of expertise. She knew the basics, but she was better with engines and the more mechanical aspects of the bird.
One of the large men next to Laryn said something to her that Casper obviously couldn’t hear, but he could see Laryn’s reaction to the words. She tensed and shook her head. She looked exhausted, but she was standing her ground against the man.
Clearly ignoring whatever her reply had been, he grabbed her upper arm. Laryn struggled against him, to no avail, and he began dragging her out from under the chopper.
Casper had seen enough. They’d found Laryn, they wouldn’t need to knock on every door on the upper level and wouldn’t have to navigate the dungeon. They needed to move.Now.
“I’m going in,” he told his team.
They didn’t protest, didn’t ask what the plan was. They’d worked together long enough, had to fly by the seat of their pants enough times, literally, that they’d figure out a plan as they went.
For a split-second, Casper thought about his brother. Nate would be appalled at the Night Stalkers’ apparent lack of any kind of organized plan. As a Navy SEAL, he and his team probably had plans A, B, C, and even D before they set foot on any kind of transport.
But even the best plan could be fucked by one simple element that was out of their control. Casper and his fellow pilots’ skills lie in making life-or-death decisions on the fly.
Because all the bright lights were currently pointed toward the MH-60s in the middle of the room, the beams didn’t quite reach the walls of the cavernous space. Which meant the four men were able to silently infiltrate the building without anyone even noticing.
The lack of obvious weapons made Casper’s hopes rise that they’d be able to grab Laryn and get the hell out of dodge without any—or much—resistance.
Looking around for her once he was inside, Casper had a moment of panic when he couldn’t spot Laryn right away. Then a commotion on the other side of the hangar, near the stairs, caught his attention.
Laryn had managed to pull her arm out of the man’s grip, and she’d fallen on her ass on the hard concrete floor. The man was standing above her, frowning.
“Get up!” he barked in a voice loud enough that it carried across the huge room.
“No! I’m not going anywhere with you!”
