“What?”
“You didn’t fuckin’ hesitate.”
Luke thought about it while he watched Tyler rock out to his music. Nothing had come between him and the mission. Even his hatred of the men who did evil things to innocents had stayed between the lines and remained calculated.
“I don’t want to hear any more stuff about not being ready, unless you go home and pee on your own couch or some dumb shit like that.”
Yeah. Luke knew he’d done good. The good guys had prevailed. He liked that.
He leaned back and closed his eyes.
Just another fuckin’ day at the office.
Chapter 33
‡
LUKE AND TYLER ate first, then showered on the base at Norfolk and changed clothes, glad to shuck the desert gear. It always felt like he was finally home when he could get into his cargoes and flip-flops. He couldn’t wait to talk to Julie. Actually, he didn’t want to talk at all. He wanted her up close and personal for his own private form of snatch and grab, where the surrender was a jackpot for both of them.
But he couldn’t reach her. He double-checked his phone, and his message had not been returned. He wondered if she somehow couldn’t figure out how to do it, or had some sort of scrubber on her phone blocking certain things.
He left her another message, “Hey Miss Julie. I’m really missing you something fierce. I just wish I could listen to your voice before I hop on this next bird. Never been so glad to be back in the old U.S. of A. And as soon as—”
A man’s voice broke into his conversation. “Who is this, please?”
“Who is this?”
“This is detective Stanfield of the San Diego P.D.”
Oh, no!
“What’s happened? I’ve been overseas on deployment. Is Julie okay? I’m flying home to see her, leaving any minute.”
“Well, son, we are trying to locate Julie right now. Seems she was abducted from her classroom yesterday afternoon. She’s been gone for nearly twenty-four hours.”
“Shit!” Luke paused to adjust his tone. “Sorry, sir. Julie is my…my…fiancée.” There, he’d said it. Now he needed to say it to her. It was going to be the first thing out of his mouth when he saw her pretty face. He remembered her speaking about the parent she was having difficulty with. “Julie told me she was having trouble with some guy whose daughter was in her class—”
“We know all about it, son. Looking for him now.”
Luke and the detective exchanged numbers and then he boarded the plane.
“You call Colin yet?” Tyler asked him.
“Shit, no. Maybe he knows something. Do you think?”
“Probably not, but maybe the police have been talking to him. Worth a shot.”
Luke tried his phone but there wasn’t any reception. “I’ll wait and call him when I land.”
“I know it’s going to turn out okay, man. You two are fuckin’ made for each other.”
“How the hell do you know? Did you ever take her out?”
“Shit, no, Luke. You know that. I told you. It’s just that Colin—”
“Tyler, that shit’s not helping me right now.”
Tyler rolled his shoulder and cracked his neck. “I feel you. My bad.”
Luke waited a minute before he added, “She is fuckin’ made for me Tyler. The sweetest little thing you ever didn’t have. And that’s a fuckin’ fact.”
Tyler gave him a grin and punched his arm. Hard.
But Luke wasn’t lured into the false hope everything would be fine when he landed, and worked to prepare himself mentally. Kidnappers of women usually made good on threats of violence. He recalled Julie saying the guy was wound up a bit tight. If anything happened to her, he’d risk his career to get even with the guy, exact his pound of flesh. If he—
He stopped his thoughts. They weren’t productive, and, amazingly, he was able to control his emotions immediately. He called Colin the minute they landed, and left a message that he was back in town and asking about Julie.
“Not sure my sister and Colin are back yet,” he told Tyler. “Maybe he doesn’t know.”
“Yea, good idea not to panic the guy by leaving a strange message then,” Tyler answered.
Tyler drove him home, and Luke was relieved to see his Hummer there. He took the key out from under the bumper and fired it up.
“You want company?”
“Sure.”
“Really?”
“Fuckin’ get in the truck, Tyler, and stop it.”
“Should we leave the duty bags in your apartment?”
“Nah, I want my gear.”
“Okay. This will be fun.”
“Not sure we can do anything, but we might think of something.” Luke was amazingly calm. His damaged self would have been filled with remorse, guilt at having left her alone, which was ridiculous. She had to be okay. Had to be.
They went by the school, which was taped off as a crime scene. He asked for the detective he’d talked to last night, and he was shown to a short, portly man and introduced himself and Tyler.
“What can we do, Detective?” Tyler added.
“Not a damned thing. We have her cell phone, as you know. I noticed your two messages, but no one else called her except some clinic in town.”
“A clinic?”
“Yeah, the Women’s Reproductive and Fertility Clinic.” Stanfield stumbled a bit on his words, hesitating. “You know anything about that?”
Stanfield watched carefully while he answered.
“No.”
“Having a hard time believing they’d be involved in her disappearance. No, everything is pointing to the kid’s father, a Mr. Miller. Several of the kids recognized him with his daughter, and saw Miss Christensen chasing after the guy. You ever meet the man, son?”
“I know someone who has, her union rep. You get hold of the principal yet?” Luke asked.
“Yes, he came over yesterday and gave us the Miller file.”
Luke had some choice words he wanted to leave for the principal himself, so was glad.
“You been to her apartment?” Detective Stanfield asked.
“Nope. Actually, I’ve never been there.”
“So you want to ‘splain this to me? How can you two be engaged and you’ve never seen the inside of her apartment?”
Luke didn’t feel like he was being treated as a suspect, but he didn’t like the questions. Of course, he definitely didn’t like the answers he was going to have to give. God he’d been such a dumb fuck. “I met her here, but not at the apartment. A couple of months ago. Then we re-kindled our friendship at the wedding of her brother and my sister two weekends ago, up in Sonoma County.”
“You move fast, son.”
“Fuckin’ A, he does. Beat me to it,” Tyler whispered and looked off to the side.
“I’m getting the impression you’re military, special ops?” Stanfield asked.
“Yessir.”
“One of those guys?”
“Yessir.”
“You think it has anything to do with her disappearance? I mean, Miller have a thing against the military or something else she might have mentioned?”
“No. She did tell me she was afraid of him.”
“Well it sounds like her instincts were right on in that department. I don’t know why she would chase after the guy, though, if she thought he was dangerous.”
Luke knew she took her job seriously. Just like he did. But he was trained to deal with sociopaths and psychos, and she was not. She loved being a teacher. Just like the one he’d saved in Afghanistan. Maybe he’d have to tell her the story someday. About how he’d almost sacrificed his life for a teacher.
No, that was work. This was the rest of his life. This was the woman he was going to love and honor and cherish for the rest of his life.
Dr. Connors arrived, racing in from his car. Luke took a good, long look at him and decided he needed his clock cleaned. Tyler quickly stepped between them.
The
guy looked white as a ghost. Luke wasn’t sure if he was worried about Julie or his job. He definitely didn’t trust him.
The man kept walking around with his palm to his forehead, as if he couldn’t believe the situation. He was barely paying attention to Stanfield’s questions.
“Sir!” Stanfield finally got impatient. “I’m going to need you to pay attention and answer my questions.”
Connors looked at Luke and Tyler and grimaced. “You got undercovers going after her now?” he demanded with a scowl.
Stanfield rolled his eyes behind Connors’s back. “Close. Okay, sir, let’s step into your office, shall we?”
Later, Luke and Tyler followed Detective Stanfield over to Julie’s apartment. Stepping through the door, he saw warm, picture-filled apartment which was just like her classroom. Color everywhere. Pictures of trips she’d taken, friends. She had posters made by some of the students in her classes. Thank you cards penned by little hands. He was asked not to touch anything, and he didn’t.
Outside again, Luke and Tyler waited by the Hummer. The waiting was the hard part. There had been no ransom demand. All of them were gone, including little Corey, and her mother, too.
Then they caught a break. A motorist was flagged down by a mother and her child about ten miles east of the City limits, in a rural area used for hunting and dirt bike riding. She was brought to the sheriff’s office, and they told tales of being held captive by her husband, along with two other women. The message said one of the women was dead and the other one was still alive. She had managed to untie little Corey and her mother, and they were able to escape. Luke produced a map of the area, and they all studied it.
“Looks like they picked them up about here,” Stanfield said.
“It’s got to be Julie,” Luke said. He refused to believe she was harmed.
“Look, much as I’d appreciate your help, this isn’t your fight.”
“The hell it’s not. I’m all the way in.”
“No, this is a police matter. You have to let us handle it.”
Luke knew he had to convince the detective he was going to cooperate and leave, but had no real intention of doing it. And something told him Stanfield was also pretending and perhaps secretly grateful for the assistance.
The detective promised to keep Luke informed.
Taking advantage of the Hummer’s off-road capabilities, Luke and Tyler combed back and forth across the rough terrain, searching the area with binoculars.
“God, I wish I had one of Coop’s drones.”
They drew a circle around the pickup point and estimated how fast the mother and daughter had been able to move to estimate how far out they had to search. On their second sweep of the southwest quadrant, he spotted a cabin with a gray van parked in front.
Luke pulled the Hummer under some trees and they both geared up, including his MP4 and a few miniature explosive devices, their sigs, some body armor and extra clips. Their night gear they left in the truck. There was no sense bringing any food or water, since it wasn’t going to be a stakeout. This would be a quick rescue operation.
Using small trees and shrubs as cover, they first made their way over to the van and touched the hood. It was still warm. Luke got out his KA-BAR and sliced a three-inch hole in each of the right tires, the ones furthest from the front door, disabling the vehicle.
They listened for any signs of movement and heard nothing.
The cabin had a back door and a front door. A high electrical line connected the house to a pole. Luke considered shooting out the power, but didn’t want to give up the element of surprise.
“I’m thinking we blast both doors simultaneously,” he said to Tyler.
“Roger that, boss.”
Luke gave him a look.
“Old man,” Tyler corrected himself.
“Thanks, man. I’m glad you tagged along, Tyler,” he said while he handed him an Invisio.
“Hell, if you get shot, I get the girl. I’m fuckin’ in it for me you asshole,” Tyler whispered. Then he grinned and they quickly got on with their mission.
“We go in two.” They both checked their watches. Tyler went around the backside of the cabin.
Windows were boarded up, so Luke couldn’t see anything while he made his way to the front door. He was careful not to cast a shadow, since there was a crack big enough for something to show through to what he figured must be a darkened interior. He placed the explosive, hanging from the door latch, and checked his watch. He set the thirty-second fuse and retreated around the corner of the house.
Tyler’s IED went off a full two seconds before Luke’s did. Immediately he heard automatic gunfire and hoped for the best. His device had only partially split the door, which must have been reinforced from the inside. He kicked in the rest.
Dust and smoke were everywhere, along with the unmistakable smell of death.
He caught sight of something moving and was relieved to see it was a thigh, more particularly, one thigh he knew very well.
Julie’s alive!
Then, Jesus! He was hit in the chest with several rounds, which nearly knocked him through the doorway into the dirt. His body armor held, though. Thank God the guy didn’t have armor-piercing bullets.
More gunfire came from the back, and he heard a muffled scream just before someone hit the floor.
Miller was on Luke in a flash, using a wicked hunting knife a little smaller than his KA-BAR, but with a nasty blade. Luke barely had enough time to deflect the man’s crazed lunge. Luke grabbed the man’s forearm and quickly broke the two bones between his elbow and wrist with a quick snap, like shortening sticks for a campfire. Miller howled, so Luke kicked him in the balls for good measure, which doubled him over on his knees. He gave the man’s head a kick with his steel-toed books and he collapsed, immobile.
Tyler came limping out from the shadows. “Caught one in the leg, man, but I’m fine.” Luke check the blood staining the man’s dark green pants and knew he could wait briefly for first aid.
Which meant he could follow his instincts and release the woman writhing on the dirty mattress. Julie was bound hand and foot, with a large, dirty rag around her mouth. She’d sustained some bruising, mostly on her wrists and ankles from the restraints, with a scratch here and there which had bled shut, but otherwise looked pretty fucking incredible to Luke. He would have to say beautiful.
Her eyes widened when she realized who he was. He dropped to his knees and cradled her head in his arms, whispering sweet messages and reassuring her he was here, and everything was going to be okay.
“Are you hurt, baby? Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head until the gag was removed. “Oh, God, Luke. He was going to kill me. You got here just in time. Corey—”
“All safe, baby. It’s how we found you. They’re both safe.” He followed her gaze to another mattress on the opposite wall. A decomposing woman’s body lay splayed out, naked, her blonde hair caked with blood from the slit in her throat. Her hands were still bound, but not her feet.
“Noreen,” she sobbed into his chest.
“It’s all over, baby. Nothing to worry about now. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
Her pungent body odor after nearly two days in the dirty cabin was still the sweetest perfume he’d ever smelled.
Chapter 34
‡
LUKE HAD A long discussion in the morning with his psychiatrist, Dr. Brownlee. He’d wanted to stay with Julie at the hospital, where she had been kept for observation. But he told her he needed to keep an appointment and he wanted to talk to his professional, like he would talk to an expert in his field before planning a mission.
What he had in mind was a lifelong mission. His old self would have made fun of wanting to get permission from his doctor to marry Julie, but this was a new phase in his recovery. He would seek out every tool in his arsenal so he would continue to heal, to become the best husband a girl could want. Asking for help was a good sign, he thought, and he decided to fo
llow his instincts.
“I’m happy for you, Luke,” Dr. Brownlee said. “But you understand these symptoms are not going to go away just because you’ve found the right girl? We’re talking about a process here, and it takes years.”
“I know.”
“How long since the dreams?”
“A week…fuck, no, ten days. Not since I’ve been back. Sorry about the language.”
“I’m used to it.” He paused and examined Luke carefully before continuing. “It’s good your mission didn’t trigger anything. It also doesn’t mean your next mission won’t. Have you thought about that?”
“I have.”
“You taking meds?”
“I don’t f—like the way they make me feel.”
“You’re going to have to be honest with me, Luke, far better to take them to avoid a return to the depression and deep black holes of those places you go, than to walk around dangerously untreated. But, I don’t think your PTSD is as severe as some I’ve seen. If I insisted you stay on your meds, even with all the side effects, would you stay on them?”
Luke looked down at his folded hands. “Will I ever be ‘cured’?’”
“We don’t talk like that. We talk about recovery. Peeling the onion. Making strides. But the frank answer to your question is: no. But with therapy, and possibly the use of drugs, if necessary, you will recover if you put the time in.”
“Okay, I get that.”
“All up to you. There are tools you have which you didn’t have a month ago. The meditation, the sessions, possibly some couples sessions—all these things will help. And we prepare for the dark times to come.”
Luke stared at his hands. He knew the doctor was right. He sighed heavily.
“What’s the sigh about?”
Looking up, he could see Brownlee wasn’t going to miss a beat. The doctor’s own daughter had married one of Luke’s best buddies on the Team, Coop. Which was why he’d chosen to work with Dr. Brownlee, because he considered him part of the family of the brotherhood, and he’d been doing some free group sessions for the Teams on his own time. The man was an expert in his field, just like Luke was. Like they all were.
“I don’t like thinking about the dark times. I just don’t,” he said, and shrugged.
SEAL My Destiny (SEAL Brotherhood) Page 20
