Tall, Dark and Dangerous Vol 1: Tall, Dark and FearlessTall, Dark and Devastating

by Suzanne Brockmann

And touching her would also undermine all that he’d done today to separate from the tornado of emotions that threatened to throw him into uncharted territory.

  “Tell me what you need me to do,” Blue said simply.

  Crash glanced in the direction in which Lucy had disappeared.

  “She’s not calling the SWAT Team, I promise. She knows we’re friends.”

  “Are we?”

  Blue turned back to stir his tomato sauce. “I thought so.”

  Crash looked at Nell, and forced himself to detach even more completely than he had earlier that afternoon, after he’d allowed himself one more kiss. One last kiss. This was one of the most difficult decisions of his life, but he knew it had to be done. “I need a place for Nell to stay that’s safe,” he said, as ready as he’d ever be to put the one person he cared more about than anyone on the planet into another man’s hands.

  The blond-haired SEAL nodded as he turned back to meet his gaze. “I’ll see to that.”

  Nell’s throat felt tight. Just like that, Crash was handing her over. Just like that, he was going to walk out of the house, into the darkness. And just like that, she was never going to see him again.

  “Are you set for supplies?” Blue asked. “Ammunition?”

  “I could use an extra brick of C-4, if you’ve got any lying around.”

  Blue didn’t blink. “You know we’re not allowed to bring that stuff home.”

  “I know the rules. I also know that when a team is called out on an op in the middle of the night, there’s not always time to go back to the base to pick up supplies.”

  Blue nodded. “I can spare half a block. But unless you’re intending to take out more than a single house, that ought to be enough.”

  Nell couldn’t believe what she had just heard. A half a block of C-4 could “take out” an entire house? Crash had already used at least three entire blocks, strategically planting the bombs he had made around the edges of the clearing surrounding the cabin. If a half a block could destroy all that, then surely he’d already used enough to blow up the entire mountainside.

  She’d realized with icy-cold shock that she’d figured out Plan B.

  Crash was prepared to blow himself up if necessary, in order to take down Commander Mark Garvin.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE WARM GOLDEN LIGHT of the kitchen seemed suddenly washed-out and much too bright. And Nell’s ears were roaring so loudly, she almost couldn’t hear as Blue said, “It’s locked in the basement. I’ll get it and be right back.”

  He vanished through the same door his wife had disappeared through earlier.

  Nell fumbled for one of the kitchen chairs, nearly knocking it over in her haste to sit down. She actually had to put her head between her legs and close her eyes tightly to keep from falling over.

  “Are you all right?”

  Crash had crouched next to her. She could sense him, smell his familiar scent, hear the concern in his voice, but he didn’t touch her. She didn’t expect him to.

  She shook her head no. “I’m in love with you.” She opened her eyes and lifted her head slightly to find herself gazing directly into his eyes. Her words had shocked him. Her blunt non sequitur had penetrated the emotional force field he’d set up around himself. “I’ve been in love with you ever since that night you made me go sledding. You remember that night, don’t you?”

  He stood up, moving away from her. “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  She sat up, indignation replacing dizziness. “How could someone who’s such a bad liar specialize in covert ops?”

  He shook his head. “Nell—”

  “Let me refresh your memory,” she told him. “That was the night you told me about Daisy coming to get you from that summer camp. Remember? That was the night you told me how it had felt to know, to really know that Daisy and Jake both wanted you around. You told me how strange it had felt to know that you were loved. Totally. Unconditionally.”

  He moved closer to the door, and she stood up, following him, angry and upset enough not to care anymore that she was making him uncomfortable. This could well be the last time she ever spoke to him. If he had his way, it would be. Because—oh God!—he believed that in order to bring down Garvin, he was going to have to die.

  “Well, guess what?” she said, stepping in front of him so that he was forced to look at her. “Jake and Daisy are gone, but I’m here to carry on. I love you unconditionally. And I want you to come back to me after this is over.”

  To her total shock, she saw that there were tears in his eyes. Tears, and absolute misery. “I didn’t want this to happen. This is exactly what I was trying to avoid.” He ran his hands down his face, trying hard to get back into control. “If you love me, then I’m going to hurt you. And God help me, Nell, I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Back in control was the last place Nell wanted him to be. She couldn’t believe she’d managed to break through his detachment as much as she already had. She pushed, trying to see more, to get more from him. “So don’t hurt me. How are you going to hurt me?”

  He lowered his voice. “The odds of my surviving this altercation are low. I’ve known that from the start. If you love me—and please, Nell, don’t love me—then I’m going to hurt you the same way Daisy hurt Jake.” He met her gaze and she knew at last that she had uncovered the truth. He was doing unto others the way he wished they would do unto him. He was so terrified of losing someone he loved, he tried to keep himself from loving, he tried to shut all his feelings down. And he’d tried to keep her from loving him, to prevent her from being hurt, as well.

  Nell reached for him, touching his arms, his shoulders. “Oh, my God, is that really what you think? That Daisy hurt Jake by dying?”

  His voice was ragged. “I know she did. If Jake had lived, he still wouldn’t be over her, he still would be in pain, missing her every day for the rest of his life.”

  “Yes, Daisy made Jake hurt. Yes, he missed her right up to the moment he drew his last breath, but think of all she gave him along with that pain. Think of all those years, all the laughter they shared. I’ve never known two people who were as happy as they were. Do you really, honestly believe that Jake would’ve traded all that joy simply to avoid the pain he felt at the end?”

  Nell touched the unrelenting lines of his face. “I can tell you absolutely that he would not have traded even one single moment, because I wouldn’t trade, either. If I could, I wouldn’t choose to go back and keep myself from falling in love with you. I don’t care, even if you are hell-bent on killing yourself.”

  She stood on tiptoe, pulling his head down to kiss the grim line of his mouth. “There’s one more kiss I’ll always remember,” she told him. She kissed him again, longer this time, lingering. “One more moment I’ll cherish forever.”

  She kissed him a third time, and with a groan, he pulled her close, kissing her with all the passion and longing and sweet, sweet emotion he’d tried so hard to keep buried deep inside.

  “Please,” Nell whispered as he held her so tightly she could barely breathe. “Come back to me.” She was begging again. This man had the power to force her to abandon her pride, force her to her knees. “Is avenging Jake’s death really worth losing your own life?”

  “Is that what you think I’m doing?” He pulled back to look at her, searching her eyes. “Don’t you know I’m doing this for you?”

  She shook her head, not understanding.

  “Unless Garvin is in custody with absolute proof connecting him to his crimes, or unless he’s dead, I’d never know for certain that you were safe.”

  She gripped his arms. “I’d be safe if you were with me.”

  An avalanche of emotions crossed his face. “I can’t ask you to do that—to come away with me, to run and hide, to spend the rest of your life hiding.”

  “Try asking!”

  “That’s no way to live!”

  She wanted to shake him. “Getting yourself killed isn’t living either, in case you hav
en’t noticed!”

  He shook his head. “This way I’ll know you’re safe.”

  “So you’re doing this for me?” She couldn’t keep her eyes from brimming with tears. “You’re telling me that you’re willing to die. For me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  He kissed her and she knew that he was telling her why. He loved her. He couldn’t say the words, but she knew it to be true.

  “If you’re willing to die for me,” she asked him, her heart in her throat, “then why won’t you live for me?”

  He just looked at her for several long seconds as Nell prayed her words would make him stop the chain of events he’d already set in motion.

  But then he shook his head, turning away. Following his gaze, Nell saw that Blue had come back into the kitchen.

  As Crash stepped back, away from her, Nell knew with a sudden wrenching pain that she’d lost. He wasn’t going to stay. And he wasn’t going to come back.

  She pushed her pain away, refusing to stand there weeping as the man she loved walked away from her for the last time. She forced everything she was feeling, all that terrible emptiness and loss, far, far back, deep inside of her. She’d have plenty of time later on to mourn.

  She’d have all the rest of her life.

  She watched as Crash took the C-4 Blue had wrapped up for him and slipped it into one of his pockets. She watched as the two men shook hands. Did Blue know it was the last time he was going to see his friend? She watched, feeling oddly detached and remarkably in control as Crash paused in front of her.

  Was this how he did it? Was this how he stayed so cool and reserved and distanced? It almost didn’t hurt.

  He kissed her again, his mouth sweet and warm, and she almost didn’t cling to him for just another few seconds longer.

  And when he walked out the door and vanished into the night, she almost didn’t cry.

  CRASH LEFT HIS CAR OUT by the main highway and traveled the last ten miles to the cabin on foot.

  He sat in the darkness outside the cabin as one hour slipped into two, watching and waiting—making sure that no one had approached the area while he had been gone.

  He went into the cabin cautiously, then searched it to be doubly certain he was alone up here. He was alone.

  In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so totally alone.

  Normally, he didn’t mind sitting quietly with his thoughts. But tonight, his thoughts wouldn’t behave.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about Nell, about what she had said.

  If you’re willing to die for me, then why won’t you live for me?

  I love you, unconditionally.

  Unconditionally.

  When he closed his eyes, he saw her, her face alight, laughing at something Daisy or Jake had said. He saw her, her eyes filled with tears at the thought that she’d ruined one of Daisy’s last sunsets. He saw her, blazing with passion as she leaned forward to kiss him. He saw her, that first time he’d seen her again in close to a year, sitting in the visitors’ room at the jail, hands folded neatly on the table in front of her, her expression guarded, but her eyes giving away everything she was feeling, everything she hadn’t dared to admit aloud until just hours ago.

  She loved him. Unconditionally.

  And he knew it was true. If she could sit there, loving him even as she visited him in jail, an accused murderer, then she truly did love him unconditionally.

  As Crash got out his roll of wire and laid out his tools to rig the last of the explosives that would guarantee Garvin’s death—and his own death as well—he stopped for a moment.

  Because when he closed his eyes, if he concentrated really hard, he could see a glimmer—just a tiny flicker—of his future.

  If he didn’t die here this dawn, he could have a future. It might not have been the future he’d always imagined, working for the Gray Group as a SEAL until he hit his peak, then moving into more standard career as a SEAL instructor until he was too old to do the job right.

  He’d always figured he’d be with the Teams, or he’d be dead.

  But now when he closed his eyes, he could see a shadowy picture of himself, a few years from now, with Nell standing at his side.

  Loving him unconditionally, whether he was a SEAL or working nights at the counter of a 7-Eleven. What he did didn’t matter to her. And Crash realized that it wouldn’t matter to him, either. Not as long as she was there when he came home.

  He looked down at the C-4, at his own private cup of hemlock, and he knew in that instant, without a single doubt, that he did not want to die today.

  He had been wrong. He wasn’t expendable, after all.

  He should have asked Blue McCoy and the rest of Alpha Squad for help.

  It would’ve have been a whole lot easier.

  Crash stood up. It was too late to contact Blue, but it wasn’t too late to do a little rewiring.

  He smiled for the first time in hours.

  Maybe his luck was finally about to change.

  NELL COULDN’T STAND IT another second.

  She put down her fork, done pushing the pasta around her plate, done pretending that she had any kind of appetite at all. “He’s going to die if we don’t do something.”

  Blue McCoy glanced across the table at his wife before putting his own fork down. He knew Nell was talking about Crash. “I’m not sure exactly what it is we can do at this point.”

  In a low voice, Nell told the SEAL about all the C-4 that Crash had rigged, about the cabin, about the message to Senator Garvin, about everything. She didn’t need to speak of the low odds of Crash’s survival. Blue had already figured that out.

  “There’s got to be a way for Billy to beat Garvin,” she said. “To implicate him in Jake’s death, and to stay alive, as well. But he’s going to need help. Lots of help.”

  As she watched, Blue glanced again at his wife.

  “This sounds more like your department than mine, Superman,” Lucy said softly.

  “You told Billy how your squad—Alpha Squad—all thought he was being set up,” Nell persisted. “Who do I have to call to ask them to help?”

  Blue lifted one hand. “Whoa. Do we even know where Crash is?”

  Nell’s heart was pounding. Was he actually considering her outrageous request? “Yes. I could find my way back there, I’m sure of it. I could lead you there.”

  Blue was silent for a moment. “It’s one thing for me to offer to help a man I personally trust,” he finally said. “It’s a whole other story to bring Alpha Squad in. If this goes wrong…”

  “Billy spoke so highly of the Alpha Squad,” Nell said. Her heart was beating so hard she could hardly speak. Please, God, let them agree to help. “If the men of Alpha Squad have even one-tenth the respect for him that he has for them, how can they refuse to help?”

  “You’re asking a lot.” Lucy leaned forward, her brown eyes sober. “They’d be putting their careers—not to mention their lives—on the line.”

  Blue pushed back his chair and stood up. “I’ll call Joe Cat—Captain Catalanotto,” he told Nell. “I can’t promise anything, but…”

  He reached for the phone.

  Nell held on to the edge of the table, allowing herself to dare to hope.

  GARVIN APPEARED, right on schedule.

  Dawn was breaking, but the west side of the mountain was still in heavy shadow. As Crash watched, Garvin drove right up to the cabin, the headlights of his car still on, still necessary.

  He’d brought a half a dozen shooters with him, but they’d come in a different vehicle and parked down the road—as if they didn’t think Crash would notice them, creeping through the woods, not quite as noisy as a pack of Boy Scouts on a camping trip, but pretty ridiculously close.

  Garvin was a tall, handsome man with a full head of dark hair. He didn’t look capable of starting a war or conspiring to kill a U.S. Navy Admiral, but Crash knew that looks could often be deceiving. As he watched, Garvin climbed out
of his car, hands held out to show that they were empty, that he was unarmed.

  Crash, too, had left his weapon inside the cabin. But he was far from unarmed. “Call your shooters off.”

  Garvin pretended not to understand. “I came alone, just as you said.”

  Crash stepped forward, opening his jacket, letting Senator Garvin, a former commander in the U.S. Navy, get a good look at all of the C-4 plastic explosive he’d rewired and attached directly to his combat vest. He also showed the man the trigger mechanism that he’d rigged. He’d turned himself into a walking bomb.

  “Call your shooters off,” he said again. “If one of them makes a mistake and shoots me, my thumb will come off this button, and this entire hillside will be one big fireball.”

  Garvin raised his voice. “He’s got a bomb. Don’t shoot. Don’t anyone shoot. Do you understand?”

  “There now,” Crash said. “Isn’t the truth so much more refreshing?”

  “You are one crazy son of a bitch.”

  “Hey, I’m not the one who wants to be Vice President.”

  Garvin was backing away, slowly but surely, inch by inch.

  Crash laughed at him. “Are you trying to sneak away from me? Turn around and look down the trail,” he ordered the older man. “See that tree with the white marker tied around it? I tied it there, just for you. Can you see the one I’m talking about, way over there?”

  Garvin nodded jerkily.

  “That’s the edge of my kill zone,” Crash told him. “Start there and draw a circle with me in the middle. Anyone and anything inside that circle is going straight to hell when I lift my thumb from this trigger.”

  Garvin’s face was chalky as he realized that edging away wasn’t going to do him much good. “You’d never do it.”

  Crash lowered his voice, leaning forward until he was mere inches from Garvin’s face. “Is that a dare?” He raised the trigger so the man could see his thumb, started to move his thumb—

  “No!”

  Crash nodded, backing down. “Well, then. It seems like I’ve got something you want—your life. And since you’ve got something I want—the truth—I think we can probably—”