Coming clean would destroy everything he’d worked for. Hell, it wouldn’t only destroy him, it would also destroy his wife.
How much could this anonymous person know? Did the emailer know about all the gifts, the secret hotel visits and the faux business expenses?
Just last weekend they had spent two days together at a luxury hotel upstate, ultimately paid for by taxpayer dollars.
Four minutes…he had four minutes left to make a decision. He should have contacted his brother when he’d received the email. But what could he have done to help? What could anyone do?
Three minutes. A rivulet of sweat rolled down the center of his back while his fingers poised over his computer keyboard. It was too late to call for a press conference. But it wasn’t too late for him to type something up on social media…confess to the affair and to the misuse of public funds.
If he didn’t do that innocent people would die. Jesus, what kind of a choice was this? What kind of a monster asked someone to make such a decision.
The back of his throat closed up again. He didn’t want to be responsible for anyone dying. He blew out several short breaths in an effort to calm himself.
Two minutes to go. Surely it was a hoax. It had to be some sort of an outrageous bluff. How could he take this seriously? More sweat dampened him as the acrid scent of his fear wafted in the air. His fingers trembled with indecision.
One minute…oh, God, what should he do? Was this real? Would something bad really happen?
Thirty seconds. His phone dinged with a text message. Quickly he grabbed it up and stared at the text.
Ticktock.
A sharp pain shot through his chest. This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be…could it? The grandfather clock ticked off the seconds.
Five.
Four. His fingers hovered over his keyboard.
Three.
Two. Oh God. He hesitated. It was too late to type something now.
One.
As the clock began to chime, a ding indicated another text message.
With dread he looked at it.
Boom.
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TOUGH JUSTICE: COUNTDOWN
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Keep reading for an excerpt from HOT COMBAT by Elle James.
Copyright © 2017 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Hot Combat
by Elle James
Chapter One
Charlie McClain pinched the bridge of her nose and rubbed her eyes. Fifteen more minutes, and she’d call it a night. The computer screen was the only light shining in her house at eleven o’clock. She’d kissed her six-year-old daughter good-night nearly three hours ago, and made it a rule not to work past midnight. She was closing in on breaking that rule and knew she would pay for it in the morning.
She looked forward to the day when her student loans were paid off and a little money was socked away in the bank. Until then, she telecommuted developing software during the day and at night she moonlighted, earning additional money surfing the internet for the Department of Homeland Security.
Fortunately, she didn’t have to use her own internet provider to do the DHS surfing. She lived on the edge of town, beside Grizzly Pass’s small library with free Wi-Fi service.
Since she lived so close, she was able to tap in without any great difficulty. It had been one of the reasons she’d agreed to take on the task. As long as a hacker couldn’t trace her searches back to her home address, she could surf with relative anonymity. She didn’t know how sophisticated her targets were, but she didn’t want to take any more chances than she had to. She refused to put her daughter at risk, should some terrorist she might root out decide to come after her.
Charlie had just about reached her limit when her search sent her to a social media group with some disturbing messages. The particular site was one the DHS had her monitor on a regular basis. Comprised of antigovernment supporters with axes to grind about local and national policy, it was cluttered with chatter tonight. The group called themselves Free America.
Charlie skimmed through the messages sent back and forth between the members of the group, searching for anything the DHS would be concerned about.
She’d just about decided there wasn’t anything of interest when she found a conversation thread that made her page back to read through the entire communication.
Preparations are underway for TO of gov fac.
Citizen soldiers of WY be ready. Our time draws near.
A cold chill slid down Charlie’s spine. TO could mean anything, but her gut told her TO stood for takeover. As a citizen of the US and the great state of Wyoming, she didn’t like the idea of an antigovernment revolt taking place anywhere in the United States, especially in her home state.
Granted, Wyoming stretched across hundreds of miles of prairie, rugged canyons and mountains. But there weren’t that many large cities with government facilities providing prime targets. Cheyenne, the state capital, was on the other side of the state from where Charlie and her daughter lived.
Charlie backed up to earlier posts on the site. She needed to understand what their grievances were and maybe find a clue as to what government facility they were planning to take over. The more information she could provide, the more ammunition DHS would have to stop a full-scale attack. What government facility? What city? Who would be involved in the takeover? Hell, for that matter, what constituted a takeover?
Several of the members of the group complained about the government confiscating their cattle herds when they refused to pay the increase in fees for grazing rights on federal land. Others were angry that the oil pipeline work had been brought to a complete halt. They blamed the tree huggers and the politicians in Washington.
Still others posted links to gun dealer sites and local gun ranges providing training on tactical fire and maneuver techniques used by the military.
The more she dug, the less she liked what she was finding. So far, nothing indicated a specific date or location for the government facility takeover. Without hard facts, she wasn’t sure she had anything to hand over to DHS. But her woman’s intuition was telling her she had something here. She tried to follow the post back to its orgin, but didn’t get very far.
A message popped up in Charlie’s personal message box.
Who is this?
Shocked at being caught, Charlie lifted her hands off the computer keyboard.
I can see you. Come, pretty lady, tell me your name.
Charlie’s breath lodged in her lungs. Could he see her? Her laptop had a built-in webcam. Had he hacked into it? She slammed the laptop shut and stared at the device as if it was a snake poised to bite. Her pulse raced and her hands shook.
Had he really seen her?
Pushing back her office chair, Charlie stood. If he had seen her, so what? She could be anyone who just stumbled onto the site. No harm, no foul. She shoved a hand through her thick hair and walked out of her office and down the hallway to the little bedroom where her six-year-old daughter lay peacefully sleeping.
The message had shaken her and left her rethinking her promise to help DHS monitor for terrorists.
Charlie tucked the blankets up around her daughter’s chin and straightened. She shouldn’t let the message bother her. It wasn’t as if just anyone could trace her efforts at snooping back to her laptop. To track her down would require the skills of a master hacker. And they’d only get as far as the library’s free Wi-Fi.
Too wound up to sleep, Charlie walked around her small cottage, checking the locks on the windows and doors, wishing she had a big bruiser of a dog to protect her if someone was to breach the locks.
Charlie grabbed a piece of masking tape, opened the laptop and covered the lens of the webcam. Feeling a little better, she took a seat at her
desk and drafted an email to Kevin Garner, her handler at DHS. She’d typed This might not be anything, but check it out. Then she went back to the social media site and was in the middle of copying the site’s location URL where she’d found the damning call to arms when another message popped up on her screen.
You’re trespassing on a private group. Cease and desist.
Charlie closed the message and went back to pasting the URL into her email.
Another message popped up.
I know what you look like and it won’t take long to trace your location. Pass on any information from this group and we’ll find you.
The next thing to pop up was an image of herself, staring down at her laptop.
A horrible feeling pooled in the pit of Charlie’s belly. Could he find her? Would he really come after her?
Suddenly the dead bolt locks didn’t seem to be enough protection against whoever was at the other end of the computer messaging.
Charlie grabbed her phone and dialed Kevin’s number. Yeah, it was after eleven o’clock, but she needed to hear the sound of someone’s voice.
“I got it,” Kevin’s wife, Misty, answered with a groggy voice. “Hello.”
“Misty, it’s Charlie.”
“Charlie. Good to hear from you. But what time is it? Oh, my, it’s almost midnight. Is anything wrong?”
Charlie hesitated, feeling foolish, but unwilling to end the call now. She squared her shoulders. “I need to talk to Kevin.”
A moment later, Kevin’s voice sounded in her ear. “Charlie, what’s up?”
She drew in a deep breath and let it out, willing her voice to quit shaking as she relayed the information. “I was surfing the Free America social media site and found something. I’m not sure it’s anything, but it set off alarm bells in my head.”
“Shoot.”
She told him about the message and waited for his response.
“Doesn’t sound good. Got anything else?”
“I looked, but couldn’t find anything detailing a specific location or government facility.”
“I don’t like it, but I can’t get a search warrant if I don’t have a name or location.”
“That’s what I figured, but that isn’t all.”
“What else have you got for me?”
“While I was searching through the social media site, a message popped up.”
“A message?” he asked.
Charlie read the messages verbatim from her laptop. “He has my picture.”
“Hmm. That he was able to determine you were looking at the site and then able to take command of your laptop long enough to snap a picture has me concerned.”
“You’re not the only one.” She scrubbed a hand down her face, tired, but too agitated to go to sleep. “I was using the library’s Wi-Fi. He won’t be able to trace back to my computer.”
“That’s good. More than likely he’s near the state capital.”
“Are you willing to bet your life on that?” she asked.
“My life, yes.”
“What about the life of your son or daughter?” Charlie asked. She knew he had two kids, both under the age of four. “Would you be able to sleep knowing someone is threatening you? And by threatening you, they threaten your family.”
“Look, can you make it through the night?” Kevin asked. “It’ll be tomorrow before I can do anything.”
“I’ll manage.”
“Do you want me to come over?”
She shook her head, then remembered she was on the phone. “No. I have a gun. I know how to use it. And I really don’t think he’ll trace me to my home address so quickly. We don’t even know if he has that ability.”
“He snapped a picture of you,” Kevin reminded her. “I’d say he’s internet savvy and probably pretty good at hacking.”
“Great.” Charlie sighed. “I’ll do okay tonight with my H&K .40 caliber pistol. But tomorrow, I might want some help protecting my daughter.”
“On it. I’m expecting reinforcements this week. As soon as they arrive, I’ll send someone over to assess the situation.”
“Thanks.” Charlie gripped the phone, not in a hurry to hang up. As if by so doing, she’d sever her contact permanently with the outside world and be exposed to the potential terrorist on the other end of the computer network.
“Look, Charlie, I can be there in fifteen minutes.”
“No, really. I’ll be fine.” And she would be, as soon as she pulled herself together. “Sorry to bother you so late.”
“Call me in the morning. Or call me anytime you need to,” Kevin urged.
She ended the call and continued to hold the phone so tightly her fingers hurt.
What was supposed to have been an easy way to make a little extra cash had just become a problem. Or she was overreacting.
Just to be safe, she entered her bedroom and opened her nightstand where she kept the pistol her father had purchased for her when she’d graduated college. She could call her parents, but they were on a river cruise in Europe. Why bother them if this turned out to be nothing?
She found her pistol beneath a bottle of hand lotion and a romance novel. The safety lock was in place from the last time she’d taken it to Deputy Frazier’s ranch for target practice six months ago. She removed the lock, dropped the magazine full of bullets and slid back the bolt. Everything appeared to be in working order. She released the bolt, slammed the magazine into the handle and left the lock on. She’d sleep in the lounge chair in the living room so that she would be ready for anything. She settled in the chair, her gun in her hand, hoping she didn’t fall asleep, have a bad dream and shoot a hole in her leg.
She positioned herself in the chair, her gaze on the front door, her ears tuned in to the slightest sound. Not that she expected anyone to find her that night, but, if they did, she’d be ready.
*
JON “GHOST” CASPAR woke to the sun glaring through his windshield on its early morning rise from the horizon. He’d arrived in Grizzly Pass sometime around two o’clock. The town had so little to offer in the way of amenities, he didn’t bother looking for a hotel, instead parking his truck in the empty parking lot of a small grocery store.
Not ten minutes after he’d reclined his seat and closed his eyes, a sheriff’s deputy had rolled up beside him and shone a flashlight through his window.
Ghost had sat up, rolled down his window and explained to the deputy he’d arrived later than he’d expected and would find a hotel the next day. He just needed a few hours of sleep.
The deputy had nodded, warned him not to do any monkey business and left him alone. To make certain Ghost didn’t perform any unsavory acts, the deputy made it his sole mission to circle the parking lot every half hour like clockwork until shift change around six in the morning.
Ghost was too tired to care. He opened his eyes briefly for every pass, but dropped back into the troubled sleep of the recently reassigned.
He resented being shuffled off to Wyoming when he’d rather be back with his SEAL team. But if he had to spend his convalescence as a loaner to the Department of Homeland Security, it might as well be in his home state of Wyoming, and the hometown he hadn’t visited in a long time.
Seven years had passed since the last time he’d come back. He didn’t have much reason to return. His parents had moved to a Florida retirement community after his father had served as ranch foreman for a major cattle ranch for the better part of forty years. Ranching was a young man’s work, hard on a body and unforgiving when it came to accidents. The man deserved the life of leisure, soaking up the warm winter sunrays and playing golf to his heart’s content.
Ghost adjusted his seat to the upright position and ran a hand through his hair. He needed a shower and a toothbrush. But a cup of coffee would have to do. He was supposed to report in to his contact, Kevin Garner, that morning to receive instructions. He hoped like hell he’d clarify just what would be entailed in the Safe Haven Task Force. To Ghost, it sounded like a
quick path to boredom.
Ghost didn’t do boredom well. It nearly got him kicked out of the Navy while in rehab in Bethesda, Maryland, at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He was a SEAL, damn it. They had their own set of rules.
Not according to Joe, his physical therapist. He’d nearly come to blows with the man several times. Now that Ghost was back on his own feet without need of crutches, he regretted the idiot he’d been and had gone back to the therapy center to apologize.
Joe had laughed it off, saying he’d been threatened with far worse.
A smile curled Ghost’s lips at the memory. Then the smile faded. He could get around without crutches or a cane, but the Navy hadn’t seen fit to assign him back to his team at the Naval Special Warfare Group, or DEVGRU, in Virginia. Instead he’d been given Temporary Duty assignment in Wyoming, having been personally requested by a DHS task force leader.
What could possibly be so hot that a DHS task force leader could pull enough strings to get a highly trained Navy SEAL to play in his homeland security game? All Ghost could think was that man had some major strings to pull in DC. As soon as he met with the DHS guy, he hoped to make it clear he wanted off the assignment and back to his unit.
The sooner the better.
He’d left Grizzly Pass as a teen, fresh out of high school. Though his father loved the life of a ranch foreman, Ghost had wanted to get out of Wyoming and see the world. He’d returned several times, the last to help his parents pack up their things to move to Florida. He’d taken a month of leave to guide his parents through the biggest change in their lives and to say goodbye to his childhood home one last time.
With his parents leaving Wyoming, he had no reason to return. Having recently graduated from the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training and having just completed his first deployment in his new role, Ghost was on a path to being exactly what he wanted—the best Navy SEAL he could be. A month on leave in Grizzly Pass reminded him why he couldn’t live there anymore. At the same time, it reminded him of why he’d loved it so much.
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