Honor Reclaimed

by Tonya Burrows

  “That’s not trust, that’s lust.”

  Says the man who wouldn’t know intimacy if it bit him on the ass. Seth snorted, not bothering to argue over it because he’d only waste his breath. Ian wasn’t capable of understanding his relationship with Phoebe.

  “You still haven’t named anyone,” he pointed out. “And stop calling me Hero.”

  “You plan to harp on this all day, Hero?”

  “You are one mean-ass mother,” Seth grumbled. “And, yeah, I think I will. Nothing better to do but piss you off until the bad guys show up.”

  Ian hissed out an annoyed breath. “Fine. Tank.”

  “Dogs don’t count.”

  “Yeah, they do. They possess a kind of loyalty most men can’t even fathom.”

  All right. He had a point. “I’m talking about humans. I know you respect Gabe and Quinn, but do you trust them?”

  Silence.

  Seth let him stew on that and continued scanning for signs of life at the target building. Far as he could tell, there was nobody inside, and the hope he’d had after their final training op was starting to fizzle out. Maybe they were jumping at shadows.

  “You,” Ian muttered. “I trust you.”

  Startled, Seth glanced over at him. “Why me?”

  “You saved my ass and you didn’t have to, so you get my trust. And that’s why I asked Gabe to let me spot for you. I owe you. Simple as that.”

  Seth opened his mouth, not exactly sure what he planned to say, but it didn’t matter because the sound of approaching vehicles saved him from having to answer. He peered through his scope. A line of SUVs rumbled toward the abandoned house, kicking up clouds of dust in their wake. “Got three SUVs inbound from the east.”

  “Yeah, see them,” Ian said and related the information over the radio. Gabe’s voice came back, telling them to hold their positions and report if they got eyes on The Suitcase.

  The SUVs trundled to a stop in front of the mansion and several men with scarves wrapped around their faces climbed out. They all carried M4s, except for one man who appeared to be their leader. He carried a sniper drag bag over his shoulder and motioned with one hand as he ordered his men to secure the perimeter. Then the sniper turned and seemed to look directly at Seth and Ian’s position—but there was no way he could see them, hidden as they were behind the rise, under a camouflage net. More likely, the sniper was just scanning the horizon, possibly searching for Nikolai Zaryanko’s vehicle, anxious to get the trade over with.

  Still, a chilling sense of déjà vu clawed across the back of Seth’s mind. He gave his head a little shake. Couldn’t get sucked into the past now.

  “Must be Askar,” Ian said, still peering through his binoculars. “Can you get the motherfucker?”

  “What’s the range?”

  “Four hundred sixty meters.”

  “Yeah, I got him. Ask Gabe if he wants to engage them now or wait.”

  Ian got on the radio. A moment later, Gabe’s orders came back. Wait. Seth relaxed off the trigger and continued watching as Askar and his men began stacking duffel bags in the sand.

  “Holy shit,” Ian said. “That’s a lot of money. Think it’s American bills?”

  “Don’t go there. That’s a slippery slope.”

  “I’m not.” He sounded offended. ”I’m more focused on making sure that bomb doesn’t end up in enemy hands. If it does, 9/11 will look like nothing more than an appetizer to the main course.”

  Not a pleasant thought, but accurate judging by everything they’d learned about The Suitcase over the last few days. “9/11 is why I became a Marine.”

  “It’s why I joined Navy EOD,” Ian said, his native New York accent more apparent than usual. “I wanted to blow those motherfuckers from the map. Nobody attacks my city and gets away with it.”

  Askar and his men dragged the cash inside, then took up guard positions out in front. And for a long time nothing happened.

  Wind kicked up sand, obscuring Seth’s view to the point he feared they’d have to risk exposure and move, but eventually it settled and he had a clear shot again.

  And still, nothing happened.

  For a good hour they waited, baking in the desert sun. Even the guards out in front of the property started to fidget, tensions running high.

  Despite the heat, a chill scraped claws along Seth’s spine. He lifted his eye away from the scope, glanced over his shoulder. Not two hundred meters away, sunlight sparked off something reflective. He couldn’t see anybody in the waves of heat radiating off the earth, but someone definitely waited out there with something metal. “Shit. We have company.”

  “Yeah, we do,” Ian said and lifted his binocs as another SUV rumbled toward the house. “Zaryanko?”

  “Looks like.”

  Seth swung his rifle around and used the scope to refocus on the area where he’d seen the flash. Movement. Slowly creeping forward. Two men. No, three. “We have three tangos on our six.”

  “Visual confirmation of Zaryanko,” Ian said. “And he’s got The Suitcase. You said three?”

  “We gotta take them out. They’re doing a sweep, looking for something. Probably us. We must have been spotted somehow.”

  “We can’t take them out. We’ll expose ourselves.”

  “If we don’t, they’ll expose us.” Seth got on the radio. “Stonewall, this is Ace. Be advised, we have three tangos coming up on our six. We have to engage. Do you copy?”

  “Copy,” Gabe said after a pause, sounding none too happy about it. “Fire at will.”

  Ian grinned. “Got something better. You were a football star, right?” He held up a grenade. “Can you still throw?”

  “Fuck yeah. Cover me.” Seth pulled the pin and broke cover to stand and lob the thing. It landed in the middle of the three men and he dropped to the ground, losing sight of their mad scramble to get away.

  Bang!

  “Got ’em,” Ian said as chaos erupted down at the building. “Now it’s showtime.”

  Seth settled behind his rifle again. Zaryanko’s men had panicked at the sound of the grenade and started picking off Askar’s men. Zaryanko shouted at Askar until a bullet sent him diving for cover, leaving The Suitcase out in the open.

  After a quick, assessing glance at the firefight, Askar strode over, plucked the metal case out of the sand, and booked it toward one of the SUVs. One of Zaryanko’s men plowed into him from behind and tried to take the case. He righted himself and pulled out a pistol. The other man backed off, hands raised, having lost his weapon at some point in the confusion.

  Askar shot the guy right between the eyes.

  Jesus. It took a special kind of coldness to shoot an unarmed, surrendering man point-blank like that.

  As the body crumpled, Askar broke into a run.

  “Have him?” Ian asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then fucking send it!”

  The first shot went high and Askar ducked behind the door of the SUV, using it as a shield as he pulled himself into the driver’s seat. The vehicle’s wheels spun, kicking up dust before finally gaining traction. He spun a 180 and hit the gas, headed straight toward Ian and Seth.

  Ian cursed a blue streak. “He’s found us. Do you have another shot?”

  “No. He’s staying low.” Seth adjusted his aim for the driver’s side wheel and squeezed the trigger. The tire popped and the SUV spun several times before crashing sideways against a sand dune. Askar scrambled out and over the dune, still gripping The Suitcase.

  Seth had him. One hundred-fifty meters, a perfect head shot, one he could make with his eyes closed. Except he did have his eye to the scope and clearly saw Askar’s face as a hot, dry wind whipped his scarf away.

  And Seth froze, a chilling sense of familiarity keeping him from pulling the trigger.

  “What are you doing?” Ian demanded.

  Seth rubbed his eyes with one hand, sighted again, and took the shot, but he was too late. Askar had already claimed another vehicle and w
as bouncing through the desert at breakneck speed.

  “Fuuuck.” Standing, Ian watched the SUV until it was out of sight, then pounded a fist against his leg, sending up a small puff of dirt. “You had a fucking flashback, didn’t you?”

  “No.” He couldn’t explain what that had been, but it wasn’t a flashback. “I just…hesitated. There was something familiar about him.”

  “Familiar or not, he’s on his way to take that suitcase to Siddiqui. Fuck!” Ian said again and grabbed his radio. “Boomer to Stonewall. Be advised, we are not in possession of The Suitcase. I say again, we don’t have the bomb.”

  …

  Sometime during the long stretch of inactivity, Phoebe had fallen asleep in the comfy office chair. She hadn’t thought sleep was possible—with each passing hour, her anxiety level climbed higher and higher. But eventually, exhaustion won out and her eyes closed of their own volition.

  Bang!

  She started awake, all but falling out of the chair, her arms and legs getting tangled in the blanket draped over her. She was alone in the war room, but had only a moment to wonder where Tucker had gone before a burst of gunshots rang out.

  Seth.

  Heart thundering in her throat, she scanned each helmet cam’s feed, struggling to understand the jerky chaos unfolding in bits and pieces on the screens. Gabe and Quinn were taking fire, shouting military-ese at each other, both of them never looking more alive as when their lives were in imminent danger.

  Oh God. Did Gabe’s wife go through this stomach-churning apprehension every time he left for a mission? How did she stand it?

  Jesse was taking shelter behind a vehicle, wrapping a bandage around someone’s upper arm while Jean-Luc and Marcus provided cover fire. Seth? No, that was Harvard with the wounded arm, and as soon as Jesse was done bandaging him, he grabbed his gun. The four of them took off in a crouching run toward where Gabe and Quinn were pinned down.

  She exhaled an explosive breath and finally spotted Seth on Ian’s camera. He was lying belly-down in the dirt, stalled out with his finger on the trigger. He was in trouble and there was nothing she could do but watch, her nails digging half moons into her palms.

  “C’mon, Seth,” she whispered. “C’mon, baby. You can do this.”

  As if her words had reached his ears, he snapped out of whatever memory held him frozen and took the shot, but it was too late. The car he’d been aiming at was long gone.

  Then Ian’s voice came over the radio. They didn’t have the bomb. They hadn’t succeeded.

  Which meant Siddiqui now had it.

  Stomach churning, Phoebe turned away from the screens—and spotted the multiple copies of Zak Hendricks’s original report scattered across the table. She grabbed one of the folders, tucked it into the waistband of her jeans under her shirt, and sprinted for the door.

  The team had tried it their way and failed.

  And if she didn’t do something now, a lot of innocent people were going to die.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The debriefing sucked. The whole mission had sucked, and now they were back at square one. All because Seth had frozen up again.

  If this didn’t seal his fate in Gabe Bristow’s eyes, nothing would.

  He left the war room ahead of the rest of the team, needing a shower to wash away the stench of failure. Needing…

  Phoebe.

  Yes, Christ, did he ever need to see her.

  As he waited for the elevator, Tucker Quentin emerged from the stairwell at the other end of the hall and approached like a tornado cell rolling in over the Iowa plains, dark and forecasting death. Seth made an effort to project fuck-off vibes. He didn’t need another ass-chewing when he still hurt from the last one.

  If Tuc noticed his vibes, he didn’t care. He slapped a manila envelope against Seth’s chest. “You need to see what your girlfriend’s been up to.”

  Seth caught the envelope before it slid to the floor. “What?”

  But Tuc had already stormed away, shoving into the war room with enough force the door banged against the wall.

  The elevator opened and Seth stepped inside, the sour taste of dread coating his tongue. He stared down at the envelope. He shouldn’t look. Should just toss it out. Like old wounds, some things were better left unopened.

  The car stopped at the living room, most likely where Tuc had been before he decided to use the stairs. Seth jabbed the button for his floor again, but a picture on the big-screen TV across the room caught his attention.

  “…Afghan presidential candidate Jahangir Siddiqui has so far refused to comment on these allegations…”

  What the fuck?

  He nipped between the doors before they closed and crossed the room in several long strides to stand in front of the screen.

  “Sources at the embassy,” the reporter continued, a hint of excitement thrumming through the grave overtones in his voice, “say the evidence against Siddiqui is too strong to ignore and they expect that the current Afghan administration will have no choice but to respond. So far, no nuclear weapons have been found.”

  Phoebe.

  Jesus Christ, what had she done?

  Heat flashed through his body, but the anger didn’t last as cold fear washed over it and his knees went to rubber bands. He sank to the coffee table and only remembered the envelope when it dropped from his numb fingers and landed with a soft whap at his feet.

  He stared at it for a long time before finally moving to retrieve it. He opened the flap, upended it, and the article that spilled out threw him back in time to one of his darkest moments after his rescue.

  Lies.

  So many lies.

  But lies twisted to make sense.

  And Phoebe had written them.

  …

  Phoebe hesitated as she neared the room she’d shared with Seth. She’d done exactly what he’d told her not too—she’d taken Hendricks’s information public and now Siddiqui’s face was spreading across the major news outlets like a wildfire. Even though she’d told her source to keep her name out of it, she wasn’t naive enough to think that meant she was safe. She had to leave Afghanistan. Probably should also go into hiding, at least until Siddiqui was caught.

  But all that was in the future.

  Right now, in this moment, she had to face Seth. And say good-bye.

  The thought carried her feet the rest of the way to his door, each step closer filling her with an aching desperation to touch him one last time. She wished she had time to make love to him again, make one last sweet memory she could hold close when the ache of missing him got to be too much. Because she would miss him. Probably for the rest of her life.

  Unless…

  What if he felt the same way? Of course, he was going to be angry at her right now, but what if he wanted this thing between them to continue? It wouldn’t be easy with her in hiding and his job sending him across the world, but maybe they could make it work. Even if it was just a physical relationship, she’d live with that. Better than not having him in her life at all.

  Hope took root and blossomed in her heart.

  His door was already ajar and she pushed it the rest of the way open. He sat on the end of the bed, still dressed in his combat gear, smeared with dust.

  And he held Emma’s picture. Once again, he’d turned to the ghost of a woman who didn’t even love him anymore. A woman he claimed not to love.

  Phoebe’s steps faltered as a sob welled up in her throat. She viciously choked it back, but a dismayed squeak of sound still escaped.

  His head snapped up.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, backing toward the door. “I can’t.”

  “Can’t what?”

  “Keep pretending her picture doesn’t bother me.”

  He gazed at the photo still clutched in his hand, guilt filling his face before he carefully blanked his expression. Didn’t that just underline the stark fact that she’d never be as perfect as his idealized version of Emma? She’d never measure up to the p
edestal he’d placed the woman on. And even as much as she cared about him, probably even loved him, she would not destroy herself by trying to live up to Emma’s memory.

  “You don’t understand,” he said.

  “You’re right, I don’t.” The words whipped out, barbed with anger she suddenly couldn’t control. “I don’t understand why you are so hung up on a woman who cheated on you, who was warming another man’s bed when you were over here fighting through hell. A woman who left you almost as soon as you returned to the States and got engaged before you even left the hospital. What is so great about that woman? What makes her so perfect that you have to carry her photo around?”

  What makes her so much better than me? She wanted to scream it, but didn’t. Even so, the question clogged the air between them like a toxic smoke.

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he picked up a manila envelope and flung it at her. It slapped against her chest, but she didn’t manage to catch it before it slid to the floor. Papers spilled out at her feet and every cell in her being turned to solid ice.

  The headline. That damn headline.

  How heroic is the “Hero” Sniper? Murder, corruption, and the cover-up of the decade.

  “Want to explain that, Phoebe?” he demanded. “Or should I call you Kathryn Anderson? Imagine my surprise when Tuc handed me that envelope and I found out the woman I’ve been sleeping with not only lied to me about her name, but also publicly raked me over the coals.”

  Tears blurred her vision, coursed down her cheeks. “I didn’t lie about my name. It’s Kathryn Phoebe Leighton. Anderson was my married name.” A ball of pain grew in the back of her throat and swallowing became an impossible task. “And I—I was going to tell you.”

  He scoffed. “Yeah? When? After you fucked me into submission?”

  “No!” Sick to her stomach, she hugged herself and searched for the right words—something, anything to explain. But really, what was there to explain? She neglected to tell him something he’d deserved to know. “I’m sorry. Seth, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. To hurt…us.”

  “I knew all along you were hiding something. Should have trusted my gut.” He laughed, and it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “There was a lot of shit said about me and my team and I was able to overlook most of it, but that article? That fucking article was the worst because it made sense. It was all bull, taking my men’s deaths and twisting them into a political agenda, but it wasn’t sensationalized. It was laid out like fact and people believed it. Omar Cordero’s wife believed it and to this day, she won’t speak to me. Because of you, I never got a chance to tell her that his last words, his last thoughts, were of her. And now you’re at it again—taking Zak’s reports to the media. Did you twist them, too? Make Zak look like the bad guy?”