by KaLyn Cooper
“What do you think that key was for that Bitsy had? Bill’s office?” Guardian didn’t use metallic keys, everything was electronic and passcode protected.
“At one time, it may have opened the front door.” Quin shrugged. “When Alex bought the business they removed all the standard locks and replaced them with our system.”
Jonathan looked across the street and saw Fire and Rescue Station 58. “Hey, Quin, can we take a few minutes to say hi to an old friend if he’s working today?”
“Sure.” Quin stopped beside him. “This is your introduction and training day. My schedule is clear.”
At a break in the traffic, they trotted across the street.
“Hey there,” Jonathan called out to the nearest firefighter who was polishing chrome on a truck.
The early-thirties man looked up and blue eyes met his. “Can I help you?”
“Is Kole Brandt working today?” Jonathan thought his question was pretty straightforward, but the way the man’s gaze raked over his body, he wondered.
Staring first at the gun openly holstered on his side, then at the Guardian logo on his chest, he finally raised his eyes to meet Jonathan’s. “He already has a security sys—”
Jonathan laughed. “We knew each other back in the Marines. I just moved here. Promised I’d look him up.”
The man’s entire demeanor changed as he rose off the folding chair and bellowed toward the back, “Brandt. You got company.” He stepped forward, hand extended. “Dane Chandler. Sorry about the third degree, but we watch each other’s back around here. Between calls, we’re sitting ducks for salesmen. They know right where to find us.”
“Jonathan O’Neil.” He shook the man’s hand then Quin introduced himself.
Kole appeared from the back of the long truck. “Jonathan.” The tall man’s smile reached his deep brown eyes as he approached. “Good to see you.” They embraced in a brief man hug, back thump greeting reserved for good friends. “When did you get in?”
“Day before yesterday.” Jonathan introduced his boss and they exchanged head nods. Turning his attention to Dane, Jonathan slapped his friend on the back. “You have yourself a real, honest-to-God war hero here.”
“Just did my job.” Kole gave them an awe-shucks grin.
“This, I gotta hear,” Dane encouraged.
“Our extraction was hot and the chopper had taken enemy fire. We lost an engine on the way back and made a hard landing once we got to base.”
Quin chuckled. “Hard landing, as in crashed?”
“The Marine Corps doesn’t call it a crash unless the bird is totaled,” Kole explained.
Jonathan’s smile held no humor as he continued. “The doors had jammed and the hold filled with smoke almost immediately. I had to get my men out through the cockpit, but some of them were hurt.”
At Quin’s look, Jonathan added. “From the mission.”
“We’d immediately pulled the pilot and co-pilot,” Kole said, but we had no idea how many were in the back. The rest of the team was focused on the burning engine so I went into the chopper and helped get his men out. Just doing my job.”
“No, not just doing your job,” Jonathan corrected. “When the fuel line broke and pretended to be a flamethrower, everyone else ran back, but you knew there were more men inside.”
Kole shrugged. “You wouldn’t leave until everyone was out.”
“As the commanding officer, that was my job.” Jonathan pointed to his chest. He’d grabbed and dragged man after man to the front, through smoke so thick his eyes and lungs were seared for weeks, but he had to get his men out.
After handing off what he’d counted to be the last man, Jonathan had returned to the cavernous helicopter. Leaving a man behind was his greatest nightmare. A vision he visited all too often in his sleep before he woke, sweating, eyes burning, throat so dry he couldn’t breathe.
Gasping in the darkness, too weak to remain upright, he’d fallen to his knees, relieved his men were outside in fresh air. The smoke seemed to part and wisp around the silver monster that came toward him. Or was it an angel? In his confused, oxygen-deprived state, Jonathan tried to fight the beast off. He wasn’t ready to die. Soon exhausted, his efforts were short lived. He surrendered.
He had glimpses of memories over the next few hours, but seared into his memory was the face of the savior in front of him. Kole Brandt.
“You saved my life, and for that I will be forever grateful.” Jonathan gave him a one-armed hug.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve heard this before.” Kole then added, “Don’t go all girlie on me and get emotional this time, okay?”
“Never gonna happen, dude,” Jonathan reassured him.
At the sound of light boots on the concrete floor, all eyes turned to the slender woman walking toward them.
“Pleasure meeting you both,” Dane said and turned his attention to the woman. “Lexi, I need to talk with you a minute.”
Her smile said talking wasn’t what she had in mind. “Certainly, Dane.”
“Any more where she came from?” Jonathan asked.
“Not here.” Kole smiled. “No worries. We’ll get you laid this weekend. I’m off in two days and we’ll celebrate with a pub crawl through Dallas.”
A tall man with dark hair and blue eyes crossed in front of the trucks.
“Trent, come meet my friend, Jonathan, and his boss, Quin.” Trent came over and shook hands.
“Want to join us when we’re off shift rotation?” Kole asked. “I need to show my friend here around Dallas.”
Trent grinned. “The Peppermint Elephant?”
“Oh, yeah.” Kole nodded. “And maybe we’ll start at JT’s. It’s a little higher class.”
A rude alarm preceded an announcement. “Station 58 respond to a multiple car accident on…”
“Sorry, man, but I’m on this one. Gotta run.” Kole and Jonathan did one of those complicated fist bump things. “We’re on for this weekend, right? You’ll join us, won’t you, Quin?”
“Might be fun,” Quin agreed.
“I’ll be in touch.” Jonathan turned to his boss. “Thanks for stopping in with me.”
“No problem.” Quin smiled. “I’m looking forward to JT’s. I’ve heard the dancers are the best in all of Dallas and Fort Worth.”
Before the trucks pulled out, the two men crossed the street and headed to the new Guardian Center Dallas offices.
Chapter 4
As Gwen stared at the office computer screen, order of fresh vegetables displayed, Luis’s wish list next to her keyboard, her mind traveled the now well-worn path to thoughts of the light-haired man who worked for Guardian Security. Although Quin had dropped in for lunch yesterday, the new guy hadn’t shown up again. Damn it. There was something about him that had her distracted all too often in the past week.
Movement caught her eye, and Gwen checked the floor though the two-way mirror. The body language of the teens she’d seen at least twice a week since she’d started working at the neighborhood diner raised her awareness. Furtive glances toward the door made her glance up to the convex corner mirror in time to watch five, dark-haired teens with light brown skin enter and survey the restaurant. She pegged them as the children of the Middle-Eastern refugees that had recently moved into the neighborhood.
They slid into a booth close to the door.
Well, that’s a new twist.
She hoped it didn’t mean trouble. The high-school-aged boys at a table near the girls had straightened their backs and taken on a cocky posture, as though declaring the young women belonged to them.
Oh, no. Not in her place. She wouldn’t put up with bullying. If these young men were anything like the children she’d helped in Afghanistan and Iraq during her down time while stationed there, they’d come from a special hell.
Children born and raised in the USA had no concept of life in a war-torn country. Sure, they had to look out for gangs there in Dallas, but in the desert, they could be snatched by the Is
lamic State for training as child soldiers, tortured to make their parents do whatever IS wanted or sold into the sex trade to raise money for guns. Even the smallest of children worked land that had the nutrients sucked dry three thousand years ago, trying to grow enough food to feed their family. In the cities, stray bullets, forgotten IEDs, or starvation could take their life in a heartbeat.
Gwen stripped off her apron and headed to the dining room to stave off any confrontation. At the last second, as a means of covering her intent, she grabbed her laptop on the way to the counter. She positioned herself so she could see all the teens in the corner mirror or through her peripheral vision. Glancing straight up to the pass-through window, Luis had moved into the prep area with a perfect line of sight to possible trouble. When their eyes met, he gave her the slightest of nods.
They were on the same page. Thank goodness.
With a practiced smile, the waitress took the newcomers’ order, helping them as they struggled, only a little, with English. She gave Gwen a long sideways glance as she went behind the counter to post the order and get their sodas. On the way back to the table, balancing a tray of full glasses, the server gave her an appreciative smile. Everyone had felt the tension rise.
Gwen wasn’t surprised when the boys spoke quietly in Arabic, commenting on the restaurant with approval, the typical complaints about their new school and neighborhood.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee or a soda, Gwen?” Her server interrupted her concentration on translating. A cold drink sounded perfect. After ordering her favorite, she refocused on the table at her back.
“We’ll get them.” The Arabic words jolted through Gwen. She clamped down the automatic reaction to turn toward the young men in the booth behind her. Instead, without moving her head, she looked into the mirror.
Her Arabic was rusty, and their dialect wasn’t familiar, but she got the meaning of the conversation.
“These Americans think they’re so great,” red shirt said with contempt.
“They’ll see.” The boy in the royal blue grinned.
Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she typed in the recognizable words and basics of their discussion.
Their older brothers, at least one uncle, and several men in their newly established community, were planning something big “to put the Americans in their place”. They often referred to the grand day when their people had brought the United States to its knees. It took Gwen a few minutes to figure out they were talking about 9/11.
There’d been a great deal of discussion about American planes, how they’d hit their mark in New York City but failed in Washington, D.C. Their voices carried an angry tone when they talked about the jet that had gone down in Pennsylvania.
“Al-Qaeda failed because they were not blessed by the true caliphate. This is why the Islamic State will succeed.”
Gwen understood those Arabic words completely as she typed them into her computer. Seemingly ignoring the boys behind her, she’d been tuned into every word.
Gwen pretended her phone rang and covertly used it to take pictures of the five boys, who had quickly devoured the hamburgers and fries they’d ordered. They were sipping the last of their soft drinks when the uniformed girls passed by on their way to pay their bills.
“Eahira.” The Arabic word for whore and the sight of the innocent-looking Catholic girls clashed in Gwen’s brain.
“I get mine in six weeks, on my fifteenth birthday.”
Gwen made a note of red shirt’s comment.
Mine? His what? Had she missed something?
“I shot off the moment I got inside mine the first time.”
That was a new voice, she thought as she glanced up to see it was the boy with a three-inch scar from cheek to jaw.
He shrugged and added, “The uncles laughed, but later my father told me he’d done the same thing and most boys do their first time.”
Sex. These boys were having sex at fifteen. Before her first tour to the Middle East, Gwen had been privy to reports of how deplorably many factions of IS treated women. This sounded like some kind of rite of passage.
“Was she naked?”
Gwen missed which eager boy asked that question.
“Of course,” scarred kid answered.
“Did they tie her to the bed or did she take you willingly?” That was blue shirt talking. Gwen recognized his voice. “My brother told me his first time was our uncle’s whore and she took him to her bed while our father and the council told him what to do.”
Or was it showed him what to do? Gwen wasn’t sure.
“No,” the scar-faced boy said. “She was tied up, but she didn’t fight me. All I have is one uncle here and only two members of the council were there to verify that I am now a man.”
“Was yours an American girl, or from our homeland?” blue shirt asked. “I think I’d like to fuck one of them.”
Gwen caught the leer in the boy’s eyes as he stared at the huddle of plaid. Would they dare kidnap them? Hurt them? A shudder ran through her at the very thought.
“All American girls are whores.” The boy next to the window said it as though it were a fact. All five watched in silence as the girls left the restaurant and walked passed the big windows.
“Mine was from Al Hasakah.”
Gwen typed in the Syrian city half way between the Turkish and Iraqi northern borders, on the fringe of IS occupation.
He continued, “On the plane here, she sat next to one of my sisters. They let me have her again, several times that day. It was—”
Gwen didn’t get the word. She was too repulsed at the sentences staring back at her. She’d heard about such things in certain spin off cells but the firsthand account made the slice of meatloaf she’d had for lunch flip over in her stomach. She took slow deep breaths as she fought the urge to throw up.
The diner phone rang and one of her college-student waitress grabbed it, greeting the caller in her cheerful voice while slipping the order pad from her apron. Gwen glanced at the clock. It was the time when supper takeout orders started. Their little restaurant prepared dozens of meals for wives who were too tired from working all day to come home and cook, and for single men who loved the taste of a home-style supper.
When she heard her name, Gwen knew it wasn’t someone’s order.
“I’m sorry, Miss Gwen. There’s a problem with a shipment scheduled for tomorrow.”
Resigned, she took the phone and headed to the office as the food service company rattled off items that hadn’t made it onto the truck. A few steps away, she turned, closed her laptop and slipped it under the counter. She’d take a look at her notes later.
Chapter 5
Jonathan needed to get away from the Guardian Security Center and the small hotel room he currently called home. Fresh air, and a meal prepared by someone other than the company cook, sounded somewhere between perfect and heaven. He wasn’t sure where that man learned his culinary skills, but if it didn’t come from a deep fat fryer, it was burned. He’d have to talk with Quin about finding a replacement when they moved into the new offices.
Stepping onto the sidewalk, the tall buildings cast long shadows, filling the street with the pretense of night. This was Jonathan’s fourth graveyard shift in a row. As the newest of the three assistant managers, he’d been assigned the twelve hours from ten at night to ten in the morning. He’d awakened several hours ago and hit the local gym since this Guardian office didn’t offer one yet. After showering and changing into his uniform, he’d headed out to find food.
A man-sized breakfast is what he needed. Steak and eggs, maybe. He remembered Up In Smoke served the meal all day and turned in that direction.
He couldn’t wait to move into the new building where he’d have his own quiet apartment rather than the outdated hotel with thin walls where he and Quin currently lived. He was sure the room above him had been rented to a knuckle-dragging gorilla who had bounced on a hooker for hours last night. She had to have been a purchased lay because no
woman he’d ever fucked sounded so fake.
Thoughts of sex shot to the unsuccessful pub crawl with Kole and company. They’d started at a strip club where the women were too skinny but all of them had nice racks. Fake, but huge. Next, the four of them—Quin and Trent had met Kole and Jonathan at the first place—moved on to a hopping nightclub. A pretty little brunette had sidled up to him, but she was more interested in the gun he was required by Guardian to carry at all times, even off duty since he could be unexpectedly called to an emergency, than she was in him.
Trent and Kole had also struck out, but Quin begged off leaving. Jonathan heard his boss return to the room next door around three in the morning, sure he’d scored given the satisfied look on his face the next day in the office. Trent had left bar number four with a gorgeous blonde he seemed to know. Around one in the morning, Jonathan was over it. A little drunk, he opted to leave Kole to the two women who literally hung on him and his every word. None of the beautiful women he’d seen and talked with gave him a flicker of interest.
As Jonathan walked toward the little diner, he realized why he’d slept alone that night. He’d compared every woman to the sassy, take-charge Gwen. Rich brown eyes, a no-nonsense haircut and very little, if any, makeup was more beautiful to him than any of the scantily dressed women with overly-dramatic eyes he’d seen replicated in every bar he and the guys had visited. He quickened his steps, hoping she was there.
Gwen sat at the counter typing on a laptop as he entered. Jonathan let out a long breath, pleased at the site of ass-hugging jeans and a tight t-shirt.
Yeah. This was the image he’d jerked off to the night he’d gone out with the guys as he showered away the stench of beer, clashing perfumes, and raging pheromones.
Without asking, he slid onto the stool beside her. “Please tell me I can get steak and eggs this time of day, Gwen.”
Her initial look of surprise softened into a genuine smile that made the gold strands in her brown eyes sparkle. He wondered if they came to life or disappeared completely when she was aroused.
