by Cindy Dees
Chas closed his eyes for a moment. He was not going to indulge in some huge drama fit in front of these hard, controlled men who wouldn’t know a real emotion if it bit them in the ass.
They unloaded the car and left him to explore the house with Poppy, and predictably, they disappeared into the woods to reconnoiter and do their whole SEAL paranoia thing. The house was authentically decorated with lots of rustic wood furniture, high ceilings, rattan ceiling fans, and glass doors everywhere that opened up to let the warm breezes flow through. It would have been insanely relaxing were it not for the fact that in the next few days, he would lose Poppy forever.
He knew she’d never been his, but dang, he’d come to love the little squirt. Even now, when she was exhausted and fussy, her natural cheer and good nature shone through.
He plopped her into the bathtub for a nice warm bath and then stretched out on a bed with her for a nap. Predictably, she crashed immediately. He, however, was not so lucky.
This whole bizarre adventure was almost over. In a few days he would fly back to Misty Falls, resume teaching, start repairing his shot-up house, and pretend to put his life back together. Thing was, he was never going to get it back together, not really. Not after Gunner.
GUNNER FOLLOWED Drago into the house. Spencer had volunteered to take the first watch outside. He went hunting and found Chas and Poppy curled up together on a bed, so cozy it hurt to look at them. He made a memory of this moment to hold in his heart for all time, but it tasted bitter knowing that memories were all he would ever have.
How had it gone so bad, so damned fast?
Drago poked his head in the door. “Get some sleep, dude. You’ve got the late shift tonight, and with jet lag, it’s gonna be a bitch.”
At least traveling west meant his body clock thought it was five hours earlier than local time. But he knew from long experience that any major time shift took a toll. Gunner backed out of the room, leaving Chas and Poppy to sleep undisturbed, and went into another room down the hall to nap alone. It sucked, pure and simple.
Welcome to your future, man. Sleeping alone with buckets full of regrets.
His dreams were of Chas.
He woke up feeling worse than before he’d gone to sleep.
At midnight, he geared up and headed outside to relieve Drago. “How’s it looking?” he asked the former CIA man.
“All quiet. I went exploring outside the fence, and just over that ridge”—he pointed at the big one south of the lawn—“there’s a dirt road. Could pose a bit of a security problem.”
“How thick is the jungle up that way?” Gunner asked quickly.
“Not thick enough to stop a bunch of tangoes from hiking down and setting up shop along the edge of the trees.”
Gunner studied the tree line intently. “They’d have the high ground. It would put us at a serious disadvantage in a firefight.”
“Maybe you could recon a few fallback positions if we had to bug out of the house?”
“Will do.”
Drago nodded and went inside, leaving him alone with the night. The insect noises here were unique, and as he explored the north side of the property, he familiarized himself with the various clicks, chirps, and buzzing noises.
He found a gardener’s shed just inside the north tree line, but it was too flimsy to make for decent shelter in a gun battle. He pushed deeper into the jungle in search of defensible positions. The best he found was a small rise, an outcropping really, on the north face of the valley, about halfway up. It appeared to be made of volcanic rock and had a line of boulders across the south edge of the little plateau that would provide decent protection. The jungle on each side of the position was thick as hell and would cause no end of problems for anybody trying to sneak up on them. The hillside above was steep and rocky, alternating scree fields that would be hell on ankles with thick stands of trees and vines.
He made a note of how to get to it again and actually cut a narrow path to it. He spent the next hour or so positioning piles of dead logs beside the new trail and pulling back curtains of vines and tying them back just enough that a well-placed machete blow would send them cascading down into the path.
Well satisfied with his work, he headed back toward the house and spent the remainder of the night roaming around the edge of the grounds.
The next day was tense. Tanaka’s people called first thing in the morning. They were on the island and finalizing their security before coming to get Poppy.
Gunner and Chas spent the morning playing with her, and every minute was a dagger to his heart. Chas didn’t look like he was holding up any better.
Lunchtime came and went without a call from Tanaka, and then suppertime came and went.
“What do you suppose the hang-up is?” Chas asked nobody in particular as darkness fell outside.
“They must’ve spotted some of the Oshiro gang,” Drago guessed. “They’re probably doing exactly what we did—setting up a trap and luring the bastards in.”
“Let’s just hope they get them all,” Gunner said fervently. “I’d hate to end up in another firefight.” He glanced sidelong at Chas for any reaction to that remark, but Chas’s jaw was tight as he stared out one of the big window walls.
“Well, it’s about time to start night patrol,” Spencer said. “You guys get some rest, eh?”
Drago headed upstairs to grab a nap, and Gunner stood reluctantly to follow. He hated to leave Poppy when he had so little time left with her.
“Rest,” Chas said softly. “You need your strength to kill whoever wanders onto the property.”
“Snark is beneath you,” Gunner replied evenly.
Chas looked up sharply. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just hate all of this.”
“Me too.”
Their gazes met for a moment of shared understanding. They were both hurting bad over having to give up Poppy.
Gunner dozed upstairs for a few hours but grew restless at around midnight and couldn’t get back to sleep. He got up, geared up, and eased the door to Poppy and Chas’s bedroom open to look in on them. They were both sleeping peacefully.
Then he backed out and quietly headed downstairs. Spencer and Drago were both outside, probably doing their shift change now. He poked his throat mike to murmur, “I’m awake and in the kitchen grabbing a snack. Nobody shoot me, eh?”
“Can’t sleep?” Spencer asked, obviously on the move. Heading for the house, no doubt.
“Nah. Gut’s jumpy.”
“Mine too,” Drago reported.
“Mine three,” Spencer added dryly. “Stay sharp, Dray.”
“Always am.”
Gunner listened idly to their banter as Drago headed out and Spencer headed in. While he was making himself a sandwich, he made one for Spencer too. When his friend came in the back door, Gunner handed him a plate.
“Nice hide you built, Gun,” Spencer commented, taking a bite of the ham sandwich.
“Here’s hoping we don’t need it—”
“Problem,” Drago muttered in both of their ears. “I’ve got movement on the south ridge.”
“Stay here,” Spencer ordered tersely. His plate rattled to the counter and he was out the door without another word. “Head count?” Gunner heard Spencer ask.
“Six. Maybe a few more.”
Aww, fuck. Not good.
“Get Chas and Poppy up. Be ready to move out with them,” Spencer ordered.
“Wilco,” Gunner bit out, racing for the stairs.
He woke Chas first. “Get up. Get dressed. Grab a couple of blankets and the emergency bag for Poppy. I’ll get her. If you still have that headset I gave you, put it on. Meet me downstairs in one minute.”
Chas’s eyes were huge with fear in the dark, but he nodded and rolled out of bed, fumbling into shoes as Gunner leaned over the crib and scooped up Poppy, blankets and all.
“Get her pacifier and some bottles,” Gunner ordered over his shoulder. “We may have to keep her quiet.”
He mo
ved swiftly downstairs, trying not to jostle the toddler and wake her up any more than she already was. She was mostly asleep now, and he needed to keep her that way. He turned off the kitchen lights and the single lamp burning in the living room, plunging the house into darkness.
Chas came downstairs, breathing hard. “Now what?”
“Get the bottles and join me in the living room.”
Chas joined him in a minute and sank down on the sofa beside him and Poppy. “What now?” he breathed.
“Now we wait for instructions. Spencer and Drago are checking out the movement Dray saw on the south ridge.”
“How long will it take?”
“Not long,” he replied grimly.
“Do we know which part of the Oshiro gang is here?” Chas asked.
“Does it matter?” he countered.
They sat in the dark, listening to the night sounds while Gunner reviewed the route to the fallback position.
And then the thing he feared happened. The animals outside started to go silent. Not good. Not good at all. Spencer and Drago knew how to move quietly enough not to disturb the night creatures. But incoming hostiles? Probably not so much.
Gunner stood up, moved over to the living room doors, and pushed one of the big glass sliders open. The quiet was even more noticeable now. “Get ready to move out. Fast. We’ll run full-out across the lawn. Do your best to keep up with me.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Insects have gone silent. There are definitely people moving around out there.”
“If we’re going to have to run, do you want me to rig up a sling for you to carry Poppy on your back?”
“You know how to do that?” Gunner asked in surprise.
“Of course. My kids’ moms do it all the time with their babies.” Gunner watched in surprise as Chas pulled out the carrying sling he sometimes let Poppy sleep in on his lap. They slipped her into that, and Gunner threw the cloth strap over his shoulder and across his chest. Then Chas folded one of the blankets like a bandana and crossed it the other direction diagonally across Gunner’s back and under Poppy, making a second envelope. Chas moved in front of him and tied the ends securely across his chest.
Gunner shifted around a few times, bouncing on his toes.
“Feel secure?” Chas asked.
“Yeah. That’s good. Thanks.” He stared down at Chas, who stared back up at him. It was all there between them. The friendship, the love, the happy ever after they couldn’t have.
“Are we going to be okay?” Chas asked, low.
“I’ll die defending the two of you, whether you like it or not,” he answered grimly.
Chas opened his mouth to say something, but Spencer’s voice cut across whatever he’d been about to say: “Run.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
CHAS CONSIDERED himself to be in damned good shape, but he’d never run so hard in his life. Gunner bolted out the door, took the lanai steps three at a time, and was off across the lawn like a high-speed train. Chas sprinted after him, watching the baby bag bounce against his back, his lungs gulping in great gasps of air, his thigh muscles burning like fire.
His shoulder blades itched with anticipation of a bullet slamming into his back, dropping him on his face and ending it all.
They reached the trees on the far side of several acres of lawn dotted with fruit trees, and Gunner finally slowed. He moved swiftly to the right for a few yards and then plunged into the jungle, disappearing from sight.
Chas lurched forward, frantic not to lose Gunner. He suspected the guy would keep on going and not look back to realize he’d left Chas in the dust. As he reached the spot where Gunner had disappeared, he was startled to spot a narrow strip of bare dirt. A trail?
He lunged forward frantically. He’d gone perhaps a dozen yards when a hand reached out of the undergrowth from the side of the trail and grabbed his upper arm.
A yelp escaped him before he bit back any more sound. “Don’t scare me like that,” he whispered angrily as Gunner yanked him off the path.
“Hush,” Gunner murmured.
“Now what?”
“Now we wait and watch.”
In the next few minutes, Chas heard a series of clicks over the radio. He assumed that was Spencer and Drago communicating with each other in some secret SEAL code.
Then, without warning, Spencer said in a bare whisper, “Gun, call Tanaka. Tell him to bring everyone.”
Gunner swore under his breath as he pulled out a cell phone and quickly dialed a number.
Chas listened as Gunner said low, “We’re under attack from a large force. Bring everyone you’ve got. The package is on the north ridge.”
The person at the other end said something extremely brief, and then Gunner disconnected.
“What did he say?” Chas whispered.
“On their way.”
“What’s the package?”
Gunner glanced over at him wryly. “You and Poppy.”
“Oh.” He thought for a second, then asked, “How long until Tanaka’s people can get here?”
Gunner shrugged. “Hopefully soon enough. Watch the south ridge. It should start to light up with muzzle flashes any time now.”
“How many bad guys are there?”
“A lot. Spencer and Dray have counted at least a dozen. Perhaps as many as a dozen more could be out there.”
“But Spencer and Drago are out there alone!”
“They’ll be okay.”
Chas frowned. “You don’t sound too sure about that.”
“SEALs always believe they’ll win. We die believing we’re going to win the fight.”
“That’s morbid,” Chas muttered.
He shrugged. It was the truth. He started to untie the blanket harness holding Poppy. “Stay here and take her. I’m going to move off to the side and take up an overwatch position.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m going to set up long-range sniper support for Spencer and Drago. If they get pinned down out there, I may get a shot at the bad guys to give them a little extra cover.”
“Won’t the bad guys see you shooting?”
“This sniper rig has flash suppression and noise deflection. It’ll sound like I’m shooting from somewhere else.”
Gunner wasn’t entirely surprised to discover that Poppy was wide-awake inside the sling as he transferred her to Chas’s arms. The tyke had an uncanny instinct for danger that no toddler should rightfully have. But right now, he was grateful as hell for it. She was sucking furiously on her pacifier, the only outward sign of her stress.
Gunner said grimly, “At all costs, keep her quiet. Even if you have to put your hand over her mouth and plug her nose until she passes out. This is life-and-death.”
Chas nodded, his eyes wide.
“I won’t be far away. If you see men coming across the lawn and I stop shooting at them, head on up this path. At the top of it, there’s a rocky outcrop with some big boulders. There’s a little pit dug behind them. Get in that, cover up with blankets as best you can, and stay there. One of us will come for you.”
He had no more time to give Chas hints or advice on how to survive the unfolding shitshow. Spencer and Drago were horribly outgunned and having to retreat fast down the south ridge. They would hit the house any second, and they would need covering fire.
Gunner shoved into the thick underbrush, using his machete to cut his feet loose when they tangled hopelessly, brute forcing his way some fifty feet west of Chas and Poppy. He began looking for an opening to see the valley as he made his way uphill.
He found a spot and flopped down behind a fallen log, working at top speed to unfold his tripod, uncover his sight, and take up a shooting position. And not a second too soon.
The infrared designator on Drago’s chest lit up as he exited the trees on the other side of the valley not thirty seconds after Gunner began scanning through his weapon sight. Spencer wore a similar designator that would allow Gunner to differen
tiate them from the hostiles.
“I’ve got you in sight, Dray,” he announced calmly, watching Drago run, crouching, in a zigzag to the crawl space beneath the house. Gunner did the math fast on distance and windage and made his corrections, dialing them into his weapon carefully.
A heat signature popped out of the trees almost exactly where Drago had emerged a few seconds before, and Gunner lined the hostile up. A smooth pull through his trigger and the heat signature flew backward.
This was a long-range rig, which meant he was firing large-caliber rounds. At only a few hundred yards’ range like this, they would hit with enough velocity to tear a body in half. Chas would purely love knowing that.
He swung his sight down the tree line and picked out another heat signature. It was at the wrong angle to show him a designator, and he held his shot until he got visual on Spencer.
There, to the left of the house, was the second infrared friend-or-foe designator. Spencer was crouching just inside the tree line. Which meant that the other heat signature was a valid target. Gunner lined the guy up and took the shot. Splash two.
Apparently the hostiles had thought better of simply charging the house based on the resistance Spencer and Drago had already put up. Knowing those two, they’d been moving all over the hillside, convincing the incoming thugs that there were a dozen or more good guys defending this valley.
The next half hour or so settled into a strange stalemate. Nobody fired a weapon, and Spencer and Drago patiently held their positions, not giving themselves away.
As for him, Gunner identified the positions of at least ten men and mentally marked them for later shooting. But he, too, silently held his ground. What the bad guys didn’t know was that reinforcements were coming. The longer they waited to attack, the better for the home team.
The stalemate began to draw out long enough that Gunner began to question why the bad guys hadn’t moved. They’d clearly organized themselves up in the jungle on that ridge, and in fact, there were now three clusters of heat signatures visible from his position not far inside the tree line. Why weren’t they attacking?
