Before Sunrise Read Free Page B

the size of her own, cupped and
separated the halves of her ass, lifting and dropping her on his
cock. Kennedy held to his shoulders. She worked her body as best
she could, feeling him down to her curled toes. Suddenly, his
movements grew frenzied. She bounced on his cock and dug her nails
into his shoulders, holding on for the explosion. Then she came
apart.
    Liam held her. She went through two deep,
climatic spasms with him buried inside of her. She wrapped her arms
around his neck.
    “ Kay, I love you so much. I
won’t be gone long. Trust me, babe, I’ll be back before you know
it.
    “ Before sunrise?” she
sighed.
    “ Before sunrise.”

Chapter Two
     
    September 2006
     
    Desert sand swirled into a frenzied funnel
cloud that made the night air impossible to breathe. During the day
this would have been a telltale sign of the squad’s approach.
However, in this part of the world, the night proved to be
excellent cover. The descent of the stealthy black helicopter,
hardly seen, and barely heard, hovered then plunged lower. Two
four-man strike teams scaled down cables, swift, silent, and
deadly, just as they’d been trained, then double-timed it to their
checkpoints outside the compound of the high-value target.
    Captain Anthony Vasquez watched the progress
over a secure feed in the Forward Ops center. The moonless night
blanketed his mission in complete darkness, but through the
technological magic of his team’s helmet-mounted night-vision
systems, he could see exactly what they saw.
    So far, they saw nothing.
    Their orders were to find and eradicate any
trace of the enemy off the desert banks of the Pahkthi Peninsula.
They’d gotten false intelligence before. Possibly the unit had
received more of the same. Vasquez knew there would be only one
option: prosecute the information to the fullest. If it panned out,
they’d have the wild card in their terrorism deck, none other than
Taliban military strategist Amir Sarkhir. If Vasquez’s team brought
this prick down, many young lives, both American and Afghan, would
be saved.
    “ Captain Vasquez, sir.”
Special Operator Jeffries, a man of barely twenty-four, short and
stocky with his cover always pulled down over his eyes, appeared
with a salute.
    Vasquez lingered near the satellite
monitors, his eyes glued to the screens. He looked up once the
display returned to the start of the next cycle, and nodded at
Jeffries. Before the interruption, the tent had been filled with
tomblike silence. Every man on his squad knew Vasquez preferred no
idle chatter. Jeffries’ arrival meant news.
    “ At ease.” Contrary to his
order, Jeffries stood upright, ramrod-straight.
    “ Sir. We have word from team
two, sir.“
    “ Go on.”
    “ They have visual on the
target. Ready to move on your orders, sir.”
    Vasquez needed Sarkhir alive. This enemy
behaved different. They lived by a code beyond his understanding.
It wouldn’t be beneath Sarkhir to use women and children as human
shields when they moved in. He’d seen it before. Better yet,
intelligence warned Sarkhir would torch the camp and everything in
it rather than surrender. He gave a perfunctory nod, knowing that
each member of the team, hand-selected by him and Liam years
before, understood the goal of this mission. “We need a total
sweep.” He turned for his gear. “Once it’s confirmed, I’ll be there
with team three.”
    “ Yes, sir,” came the
response.
    “ We have a standing order
from the top, Jeffries. Tell McKinley we are go .”
    “ Yes, sir!”
    The date was September
2 nd ,
2006, and Vasquez had reached his twenty-two days target for a
return stateside to his pregnant wife and twin six-year-old sons.
His request to lead the primary team on this mission had been
flatly denied; he’d had to call in every favor owed to him just to
put in with the follow-on squad and get there thirty minutes after
all the action. But it was the best he could negotiate, and his
presence the past few days had brought a