by Aiden Bates
The men all looked at one another, confused. Trent was just as confused as the rest of them. "I have no idea who that is, Chief."
DeWitt made a face. "You need to get out more. Senator Blake was just elected last November. He's an arch-conservative, and a lot of his funding comes from a foundation backed by none other than Luke Smolak."
Toledano lifted his chin. "Who owned that hotel we raided."
"Right." DeWitt nodded slowly. "Now, that doesn't mean Smolak is involved with White Dawn, or that he's somehow supporting them or white supremacy. There's been a lot of stuff going on here at home, and funding for tracking domestic white supremacist terror has been eliminated. So if we're not allowed to address it at home…"
"We can't address it abroad." Iniguez gripped his stomach. "It's like someone's playing political football. With, you know, neo-Nazis."
Trent finished his beer in one gulp. "Fun thought."
"I know, right?" Iniguez looked a little green.
"Regardless, we do the job in front of us. We're not hunting for White Dawn, but if we find them Nazi-ing around somewhere, we'll take them out as part of our routine job. That's what I'm sticking to. That's what I'm asking all of you to stick to. Can you do that?"
"Hell yeah," Floyd said.
No one else was going to have a problem with it. Going against orders was beyond the pale, but this wasn't defying command. This was simply doing their job.
The rest of the guys relaxed after that. Trent couldn't relax. All he could do was think about Mal. If someone in government decided to side with White Dawn, and Mal had just smashed a White Dawn plan, then the odds of bringing Mal into America had just dwindled to nothing.
He settled back into life off deployment quickly. They all did. It was a normal part of the job. They did their training, just like they always did, and the training reminded Trent of why he'd bought the indulgent bed. The physical training was intense. Everyone liked to ooh and ahh over Navy SEALs, and over the Navy SEAL body, but no one ever wanted to do what they had to do to get that SEAL body.
Even the SEALs didn't want to do what they had to do to get that SEAL body, most of the time. They just had the proper motivation to push past the part of their brain that was screaming, "You know this is killing you, right?"
They didn't just run, swim, and climb. They sparred, too. They sparred against each other. They worked out against other units who were similarly off deployment at the moment. They had grueling days when they had to push themselves and each other to the absolute limit and back again, only to get up and do it all again the next day.
At least when they were deployed, they got to rest when they got back to the ship or to the base.
Still, they had time to stand down here. Once they were done with training for the day, they could go home and crack open a cold one, or head down to the bar with their buddies and enjoy a night out. Trent considered himself to be in a relationship, but he could still enjoy watching Fitzpatrick try to pick up omegas and fail miserably. Lupo wasn't quite up to dancing much yet, but Iniguez and Buelen could go out and show off their moves on the floor without embarrassing the Navy too badly.
Trent made a point of visiting his uncles, too. They weren't comfortable taking on his baby, and Trent wasn't angry about that. He couldn't be. It wasn't really their job to do it. It would have been helpful, but they were older now, and Uncle Jonas had diabetes. Uncle Nick was having trouble with his hearing. They weren't catastrophic issues, not yet, but they weren't a great combination for running around after a little kid.
Trent wanted to make sure they understood he wasn't upset, so he stopped in to visit as soon as he could. "I'm doing what I can to bring him over, and then it won't be an issue, of course," he told them. “In the meantime, I'll figure out some other backup plan. Maybe I'll pay Chief's omega to take care of it when I'm deployed. What's six instead of five?"
Nick snorted. "Yeah, I'm sure he'll be right on board with that."
"I'm pretty sure he was joking, sweetie." Jonas told his omega, with a little kiss. "Seriously, Trent, why are they making such a stink about bringing him to America anyway?"
"He's apparently had a bit of legal trouble. Apparently his mom didn't appreciate something their dad did and tried to sell them out. Charming, I know, but he's a good guy." Trent couldn't tell them the whole story, it was classified, but they both understood that.
"How many of the translators and other allies who got brought over during the last war had criminal records?" Nick waved a hand. "If they could do it for them, they should be able to do it for you. Right?"
Trent was pretty sure it didn't work that way, especially not with the new ban on investigating white supremacist organizations. It was another avenue to look into, but probably not their best bet.
"You're going to have to be prepared for us to not be able to bring Mal over right away, or maybe not at all," Chief told him after a couple of weeks. "It's not what we want, but it's a distinct possibility. How would you provide for your child if you couldn't bring Mal over?"
"I have no idea." Trent had to steady himself at the very thought of not being able to bring Mal home. "That's not even on my radar. Mal's a good man, he's helped us already. He saved my life and the life of the guys I was with. That alone should be enough to get him a green card, damn it."
"Sure it should. It probably would if we were talking about a war zone, but we're talking about someone who had already escaped US custody and on friendly soil. These are the sacrifices we make, Kelly. It's not just our lives, it's our freedom as well. We can't just say, 'Well, I'm going to build a new life with this hot guy.' It's a lot more complicated than that for us."
Trent understood that, at least in theory. It was the practical side of things that was giving him trouble.
Through all of it, he still heard from Mal. Mal didn't say a lot in his communication, but since he was mostly sending messages through their more public channel they were both limited by circumstance. Hey, Trent. Hope you're doing well. Things here are okay. I miss you. That was all he had to say for himself the day before he took down the Oktoberfest bombers.
Hey, Trent. Hope all is well with you. We're on to the next big thing. Saw a seal the other day, thought of you.
What did that mean? Was he someplace Nordic? Did that mean he was chasing down a lead in Scandinavia? Or had he taken a trip to the zoo? It was so hard to tell with Mal.
Trent sent back equally inane little notes on their less-private channel, but he reserved their private channel for anything intense. He reported on their inability to investigate White Dawn, but Mal was unconcerned. Chief warned me. Don't get yourself into trouble. I'll keep you — or him, whichever — posted about what they're doing if it crosses with what you all do. I get you don't operate independently.
I'm still trying to bring you home. He stared at the sentence for a while before hitting send. Home seemed to be a loaded word. Had Mal ever had a home?
I know you are. Mal didn't hesitate before responding. I appreciate that. Hopefully we'll see each other again.
Trent wasn't about to trust to hope. He got back to research.
Chapter Twelve
Mal set up his connections the safest way he could. No connection was completely untraceable, but Mal made a career out of setting up the next best thing. The Navy wouldn't be able to listen in on their conversation. Neither would the Wolves. White Dawn would have to have a much more sophisticated hacker than they'd shown themselves to have so far if they wanted to get in on this discussion.
Once he was confident that his conversation would be private, he made the connection between his computer and Trent's. They hadn't done much of this kind of thing. It was hard to get the schedules to line up, and even harder to get the schedules to line up when Mal had the right infrastructure in place. Right now, he and Morna had some downtime. It was downtime someplace chilly and unpleasant, but Trent didn't need to know that.
A window opened on Mal's screen, and there he wa
s. Mal hadn't seen Trent in a month. His heart melted. Trent didn't look much different. He was still beautiful, still so clean cut it made Mal want to do something criminal just on general principle. "Mal," Trent said, in a voice that sounded on the verge of tears. "You look amazing."
Mal did not look amazing. He'd put a ton of concealer on his face to hide a bruise from his and Morna's latest adventures with White Dawn, and his clothes didn't fit the way he liked. It was kind of Trent to say so, though. "So do you. Life in Virginia seems to agree with you."
Had he already found someone new to keep his bed warm? Someone better looking, without the baggage of having been raised in a virtual cult?
"Wait until you see how it works for you, Mal." Trent grinned, slow and easy. "You're not going to believe it. You'll feel so good, and so safe, you'll wonder what took so long."
Mal didn't ask if they'd found a way to bring him over. If he had, Trent would have started with that. At least he was pretending he still wanted Mal at his side. Mal didn't blame him for giving up hope. There was no way it was ever going to work.
Instead, he changed the subject. "So how is everyone back there? I know Chief had concerns about the whole thing, with you all getting called off the case with White Dawn."
"Yeah." Trent ran his hand through his hair. "That threw us all for a loop, to be honest. I have no idea what's up there, but we're not going to take it lying down. We just have to be circumspect about how we handle it." He looked away for a second. "I'm not sure how high this goes, man. But I'm getting an impression that it goes pretty high."
Mal waved a hand. "American politics. Not much different than anyone else's politics, when you get right down to it. At the end of the day, it doesn't change what I do, you know?"
Trent's whole on-screen demeanor changed. He went from relaxed to on alert in about a second. "You're not putting yourself in harm's way, Mal. You're pregnant. You have other things to think about right now."
Mal rolled his eyes and shifted his position. "No, no, I get that. Most of my job involves sitting behind a computer, yeah? The only danger there is carpal tunnel." He carefully kept his bandaged left wrist hidden. "Anyway, I'm sending you a file. I don't have a more secure way to get it to Chief and I don't want him to get into trouble for getting things from me, all things considered."
He hit send. "It's photographic evidence from an attack on Syrian refugees in Denmark. As near as anyone can tell, no actual Danish people were involved with this attack. Four men were arrested in connection with the killings, all with identical tattoos. They broke out of prison twelve hours after their arrest."
"Fuck." Trent looked down. Of course he'd opened the files. Mal would have done the same thing. "Four guys did this?"
"They're vicious buggers, Trent. I'm just glad I didn't have to go in with the cleanup crew." He shuddered. It wasn't entirely voluntary. “I've seen a lot of terrible things in my time, Trent. I've done some pretty bad things, too. That…that's more than I can wrap my head around, you know? It's just terrible."
"Yeah." Trent swallowed, and he looked slowly back up at Mal. His eyes leaked tears. "Did your guys get them?"
"All but one." Mal clenched his jaw. He'd fired right at the motorcycle as it sped away, consequences be damned, but none of his shots landed. "I guess the silver lining is that they'll know someone's onto them now."
"Would that be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?"
Mal tried to keep a stern expression, but he couldn't keep a smile from turning the corners of his mouth up just a little bit. "Leprechaun jokes. Adorable, really. Do go on."
"I bought a whole book of them. It's going to be our kid's first book." Trent waggled his eyebrows up and down.
Something inside of Mal shifted uncomfortably. Was he delighted Trent was showing such an interest in their child? Annoyed that Trent was making such an assumption when Mal was still forced to give birth alone, risking his life? Both? Neither? He had no idea, which he supposed was a natural consequence of being raised to think emotions were for other people.
"Is it really?" He hoped he didn't sound too off. If he did, he could always attribute it to the connection. "That'll be lovely. Will you dress it up as a leprechaun to go to school, too?"
"Maybe. That'll be your decision, once you're here." Trent winked. "So are you showing yet?"
Mal groaned and made a face. "Honestly, probably not. I'm only what, twelve weeks? Fourteen? My clothes feel a little tighter, but Morna says she wouldn't be able to tell if she didn't already know. I, of course, already feel as big as a house." He pressed his right hand to his chest. "I'm sure I'll be in fine shape by the time I'm seven months in."
Trent laughed. "You'll still be beautiful, Mal. You always have been, even grimy from an op against ISIS."
"On a dusty old abandoned hotel bed." Mal shook his head at himself. "Yeah, I remember."
"You should. It was our first time. We'll have to tell that story to our kids someday."
Mal knew his face had just gone as red as his beard. "We will not be discussing our sex life with our baby, thank you very much."
Trent snorted. "Well, no. But we'll tell them all about how we met, and how you saved a bunch of Navy SEALs from certain doom."
"I thought for sure that part would be classified," Mal teased. He wrapped an arm around his middle. Maybe, if they succeeded in getting the baby out of him and back to America, it would be something Trent could tell the baby when it asked about its other parent.
"Oh, well. You know. It's not something we'd want the general public to know." Trent huffed out a little laugh.
Mal's satellite phone rang.
"Is that your dad?"
Mal sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, it is."
Trent sighed. "Well, I should probably be going anyway. Got a really intense day of training tomorrow. I'd hate to be dragging for any of it. The fact that Chief likes you doesn't mean he'd go easy on me."
Mal raised his eyebrows. "Chief likes me? Huh. Well, wonders never cease." He bit his tongue. He wasn't ready to hang up or to lose sight of the man he loved. He supposed it was time, though. He didn't need to keep filling his head with what-ifs and maybes. "I'll send you a note in the next couple of days. I don't know what Da has in mind, but it's not going to be fun."
"Yeah. Take care of yourself, okay? I love you."
Mal blushed again. "I love you too." It seemed like the right response. Mal wasn’t sure that “love” was the right word, not yet. He appreciated the way Trent seemed to be trying to work on his behalf. He cared for Trent. He valued Trent. It could grow into love, he supposed, with time and care.
Explaining that would get too long, too technical, and probably wouldn’t be well received. I love you came the closest.
Mal terminated the connection and bowed his head. His pulse thundered in his ears. He needed to calm down before he called Da back.
When he did, Da was furious. "When I call you, you answer the damn phone!"
Mal sighed. Never mind that it was five in the morning, and even other Wolves would be in bed and asleep. If Da called, Mal was to answer. "Sorry, Da. I was busy."
"I am your first priority. Do you understand that, son?"
Mal reached for a lie his father would buy. "Of course, sir. But I'm still not going to answer the phone while I'm having a shit, sir."
Da choked on his own rage for a second. "Don't be vulgar, Mal. I raised you better than that." He took a deep breath and seemed to settle himself. Mal could relax, just a little bit. "I have a job for you. It looks like a big telecommunications company not too far from where you are right now has been handing user data, to include messaging and call data, over to police and spy agencies."
Mal recoiled. "In the course of an investigation or…"
"Does it matter? I didn't ask you to think about it, and they haven't been doing it for an occasional suspect here or there. They've been doing it across the board. Look into it, see if this is true, and then stop them. Make sure they know it was us, b
ut not necessarily you."
Mal smirked. His father's phrasing didn't escape him. He assumed Mal would find the allegation to be true. Mal assumed he would too, but at least he was honest about it. "Yes, sir. Time frame?"
"Quickly, but no specific deadline. The sooner you get that done, the sooner you can get to work on something more active. Can't have you getting soft, can we?"
"No, sir." Mal poked at his belly. His hard abs were already gone. Maybe he wasn't showing yet, but "soft" had left the stable a long time ago.
When Da found out, there would be hell to pay.
He washed off all the concealer he'd used to hide his bruises and got to work. He and Morna were in Finland right now, which wasn't necessarily a bad place to be. Their flat was a dump, and they'd already been there too long. They needed to get moving. He wouldn't mind putting it behind them and getting to someplace a little warmer anyway. It was only October. It was too early in the year for him to be this cold.
