King of Hearts (Deuces Wild Book 1)

by Irish Winters

  If he was smart enough to get her back.

  Out of nowhere, Isaiah jerked the truck door open, startling Tucker. He climbed inside, his arms full of bags and boxes. “Here, hold this stuff,” he said as he offloaded them to Tucker’s arms. “Noodles, dumplings, and spiced shrimp. More bottled water. I’ve got a room ten minutes from here.”

  “Is it on ground level with an easy exit?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Do you think I’m stupid?”

  That had to be one of those rhetorical questions. “Where’s my beer?”

  Isaiah frowned. “You didn’t really think I was getting alcohol for you, did you? Not with the shape you’re in. Sit back and relax. I know what I’m doing.”

  Tucker shot his junior agent a sideways glance. “Do you?”

  The truck lurched into traffic, then stalled to the irate blaring of horns and what Tucker guessed were curse words in the native language. “Depress the clutch, smart guy,” he told Isaiah while he worked the stick shift. “It’s the middle pedal on a standard transmission, buddy. Not automatic.”

  Kids these days. None of them knew how cars worked.

  Isaiah blew out a quick breath and followed instructions. “I know, I know, I just forgot. Guess we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

  “No, Toto, we’re not.”

  Isaiah took over the stick shift rather well after that. The foreign sights of Hồ Chí Minh City nightlife flew by in a blur. A beer sure as hell would’ve been nice, though.

  Isaiah was as good as his word. The joint was ground level with a sliding glass door where a man could make a quick getaway. His hotel selection left a little to be desired, but Tucker was too spent to worry. He needed a bed to land on—fast.

  Tucker flipped up the light switch and surprise, surprise. Isaiah had been a busy boy. “Where the hell did you find M203 grenade launchers?” Tucker asked, his estimation of his junior agent on the rise.

  “You’d be amazed what you can get on the streets in this town. I’ve been busting my butt since I got my get-out-of-jail-free card. Look what else.”

  Tucker ran a hand over the wooden 5.56x45 NATO ammo boxes, and the matching Colt M4 automatic rifles with ACOG scopes that went with them. Air-cooled. Gas-operated. Magazine-fed carbine. M4s were lighter and a sturdy choice by Army, Navy and Marines alike, a weapon he’d used enough over the years. He had one in his private collection. “These are American-made.”

  “See this stuff?” Isaiah couldn’t have looked prouder when he held up a contraption with det cord, a numerical gauge, and an off-white brick of—oh hell. C4. “It’s an IED kit. I wasn’t sure if we’d need one, but they were fifty percent off, so I bought ten. Really cool, huh?”

  Tucker eased the device gently out of his junior agent’s excited grip. “Ah, yeah. Let me have that. You do know you’re holding enough explosives in your hand to cook this hotel and you along with it, don’t you?”

  Visions of what had happened to the seventeen sailors onboard the USS Cole when Al-Qa'ida used C-4 to blow a hole in it flashed to Tucker’s mind. And Khobar Towers, the military housing complex in Saudi Arabia. Hundreds of suicide car bombings across the world. Holy hell. Some jerk was selling this crap on the streets to imbeciles like Isaiah? Incredible.

  Tucker set the device flat to the end table beside the bed, his adrenaline spiking. Isaiah knew how to shop, but having money in your pocket didn’t equate to shopping smart. That was close.

  The geek’s lower lip dropped open. His brows arched as he stepped away from the really cool, huh, bomb. “Even without the detonators?”

  Tucker slanted a sharper look at the kid. “You know to keep the detonators separate? Where are they?”

  Isaiah pointed to his stack of supplies. “In that paper bag. Stewart’s men trained me, remember? I’m not dumb enough to keep wired explosives in a hotel, Tucker. Come here. For feeling so good, you look like shit.” Isaiah stuck his chin out. “Now sit down and shut up. Let me do my job, why don’tcha?”

  Tucker let Isaiah win that round. He did tend to overreact when he was beat to hell.

  Sitting on the end of the nearest bed, he scanned the rest of the room with his good eye. Two double beds. Clean sheets. Decent-looking pillows. Aside from Isaiah’s spot-on purchases stacked near the door and the scare of near annihilation by C4, the interior of this two-bit hotel was a definite improvement over the exterior. “Where’d you get the money for all this shit?”

  “I have ways,” Isaiah said as he knelt at Tucker’s right and gently examined the messed up eye, his fingertips peeling the eyelid up. He cringed as he took stock. “I was afraid of this when I left. Those jail guards were waiting for their boss to go home before they jumped you.”

  “Yeah well, I wasn’t the only one they tangled with. You keeping an eye on Melissa?” Tucker stared at the ceiling as best he could, kind of hard when someone was poking around in your eye.

  “You know what’s odd,” Isaiah murmured just before he squirted a heaping shot of molten lava into Tucker’s eyeball. “Sorry. Saline solution. Your eye looks like hamburger. That might sting a little.”

  A little, nothing. A sharp stick couldn’t have hurt worse. Tucker shuddered involuntarily, willing the pain back into the shadows where it belonged, where he could deal with it later. He’d learned early in life. Never let ’em see you cry.

  “What’s odd?” he croaked. “Is she okay?”

  “You’ve got a bionic eyeball?” Isaiah asked, breathing on Tucker’s chin he was so close. “Is that what I’m seeing? A lens transplant? God, Tucker. Why would you let them do something like this to you? Is this part of my father’s drone experiment?”

  Tucker shook his head to clear the tears running out of his poor, pummeled eyeball. Isaiah’s attempt to help stung like an angry hornet. “I’m not a drone,” he bit out. “This was all my doing. My call. The lens helps me see better and farther when I’m on sniper duty. That’s all. I never miss a shot now. It’s not damaged, is it?” Because it sure feels like it’s turning my eyeball into sushi.

  Isaiah’s forehead wrinkled, and his brows dipped as he once again peeled the eyelid open and peered closer. “It’s still in one piece, but your entire eyeball’s blood red. I have no idea if the lens will work right once the swelling goes down. Can you see any light?”

  Tucker nodded. “Yeah. I can see. Everything’s just blurry.”

  Isaiah’s lips thinned. “That’s good. I was afraid you might have retinal detachment going on, as bad as it looks. Do you have to activate the lens or is it always on?”

  “It’s always on. Stop worrying about me. Is Melissa okay?”

  Isaiah nodded, his eyes grim and his lips tight while he wiped Tucker’s tender eyelid with what felt like a rake but was only an antiseptic wipe. Crap, that stung. “What’s odd is I have no trouble reading Melissa’s emotions, but I can’t get inside of her head like I can yours. I can’t talk to her. You heard me tell you about meeting up with your ex back in Alex’s office, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, so?” The soothing gel Isaiah had just saturated Tucker’s bleary eye with must’ve had an anesthetic in it. Instant relief. The stabbing pain was gone. His shoulders relaxed. He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and relaxed his clenched fingers. He no longer wanted to kill Isaiah with his bare hands.

  “So I can communicate directly with you, but not her. It’s like one-way transmission. She has no clue I’m picking up her thoughts. You must have some level psychic ability. With you, it’s two-way.”

  “Bullshit. You were sitting three feet away from me. That’s all.” He was not psychic. End of story. “How is she?”

  Isaiah hummed and hawed, not arguing while he doctored the rest of Tucker’s face, cleaning the bruises and dosing two of his cuts with ointment and butterfly bandages. “She seems to be calmer now, more confident, but she’s very tired. Several American men are with her. She feels safe with them. You want me to look at your leg? I saw the limp.”

  “
Leave my leg alone. What men? How many?” Tucker would never admit to the pain. Besides, it wasn’t his leg. It was a rib or two.

  Isaiah repacked the med kit and set it on one of the wooden ammo boxes. “A handful, from what I can tell. Military. The last hint I detected from her had something to do with an amputated leg.”

  Tucker glared as best he could. “Hers?”

  “I don’t think so, but her mind was definitely overloaded with anxiety. She’s an interesting study. Sweet, but strong-willed. Caring, but independent. I detect a streak of a control freak.”

  “You have no idea.” Tucker made it a statement. Melissa was as confident as an Amazon woman on the hunt and twice as defiant, but saturated with the cream of human kindness. Drizzled with pure honey and a touch of cinnamon and vanilla. A touch of cayenne pepper. That was Melissa, from the crown of her golden locks down to her painted toes. “She’s okay?”

  “She’s still stressed. I’m not able to tell precisely why, but I’ll keep checking on her. Then I need to make another call.”

  “Who do you need to call?”

  “Never mind. First…” Isaiah poured a carton of steaming noodles into one of two bowls he’d pulled out of one of his many bags. “Let’s eat. Vermicelli and pork. There’s a box of eggrolls around here somewhere. Ah, there it is. Here. Chopsticks. Then we’ll talk some more.” He handed Tucker the first food he’d had since they’d landed in Vietnam.

  Tucker stuffed his mouth with a few good-sized helpings before he asked again. “Spill. Who else have you been talking to? Stewart? Strong?”

  “Your ex,” Isaiah admitted, slurping a heaped mound of rice noodles.

  Tucker choked. “Nicole? Why?”

  Isaiah stopped playing with his food. “Because we came to Vietnam to locate your son, remember? This trip is supposed to be about Devlin.”

  “Deuce,” Tucker corrected, his Irish up, and his chopsticks clenched like weapons in his fist. “I can’t worry about him right now, Toto. I’ve got to find Melissa first. Then I’ll go look up my ex and negotiate custody of my son. What were you thinking?”

  “Will you stop calling me names? I located your ex like I was supposed to and I phoned her. It seemed like a good idea. Nicole wasn’t too thrilled to hear that you were in the country, but I told her how much it meant for you to see your son. She agreed to meet with you some place where there would be a crowd. What’d you do to her that she’s leery of meeting you in person again? Beat her up? Slap her around?”

  “No,” Tucker shot back at Isaiah, sick of the attitude in Isaiah’s voice. The woman had a way of turning everyone against him. “I don’t hit women, moron. Didn’t you read her mind? Couldn’t you tell she was lying?”

  “No, but I will if you want me to.”

  “Then do it,” Tucker snapped, pissed that Isaiah thought for one second he’d abuse a woman. There were times he’d come close to slapping Nicole. She’d certainly had it coming with all of her lies. The woman could make the Pope swear, but not once had he laid a hand on her in anger.

  Isaiah set his chopsticks across his bowl. “Okay. I’ll only be a second.” He closed his eyes, two fingers to his temple, then grunted quietly before he peered at Tucker out of one eye. “You’re right. I probed deeper. She’s a shallow piece of work, isn’t she? Sorry. What on earth did you see in her?”

  “Man, I wish I’d known you during my divorce,” Tucker admitted, genuinely relieved that someone just might believe his side of all the stories Nicole had told. “I wouldn’t be stuck in the mess I am today.”

  “But we wouldn’t be here to help Melissa, either,” Isaiah reminded. “Everything happens for a reason, which is why I’ve been stockpiling guns and ammo since I got out of jail. I knew you’d choose to go after her first. I just hoped we could squeeze Devlin into whatever time you have left in country.”

  “Twenty-four hours,” Tucker muttered. “I’m supposed fly the friendly skies out of Vietnam in less than a day, and his name is Deuce, damn it. Get it right, will you?”

  Isaiah looked away, and Tucker caught the attempt to avoid eye contact. Maybe he was psychic or something. “You saw something else, didn’t you?” he asked, his father’s heart climbing up his throat. “With Nicole. You saw something else when you read her mind. Is my boy in trouble?”

  He knew before Isaiah looked him in his one good eye. “I did. Sorry. I should’ve told you. She’s letting what’s-his-name—Vinnie, is it? She’s letting Vinnie have full control over your son. At his garment factory. Deuce is in trouble, Tucker. He’s been forced into child labor along with a couple hundred other kids Vinnie’s got working for him.”

  Tucker dropped his food and jumped to his feet, madder than a son-of-a-bitch. “Where’s this factory?”

  Isaiah looked to the door, the color draining from his face. “Ten miles south of here on the west side of the Saigon River. He’s not in pain though. Tucker, we can’t save him. Not now. I just picked up a sharp image from Melissa. She’s covered in blood.”

  Tucker punched the wall. “Move out!”

  Chapter Nine

  “Son-of-a-gun,” Melissa exclaimed to herself, softly of course. Simon was concentrating.

  She knew there’d be blood and gallons of infection during an amputation this ugly, but so much? Her stomach began a slow climb up her throat at the river of greenish yellow goo slurping over the edge of the surgery table. The tendrils of bright red curlicues in the mess were not helping her breathe or think clearly.

  The ugly smelling concoction splattered against her pant leg. It squished beneath the soles of her canvas sneakers, but what could she do? Only bathe later when the work was done and scrub her clothes and shoes.

  She had names to go with the faces now, and Dang, the man whose leg they were amputating, needed the best help available. His poor wife, Tam, was still recovering from her narrow escape with the pit viper. For now, she rested with her children, Mimi and Peewee, in the same hut as Melissa. She suspected the children’s names were Simon’s nicknames, but they fit the little tykes, and it was endearing of him to have given them such sweet attention.

  The abysmal humidity made the coppery scent of Dang’s blood weigh heavy on her mind and in her nose. Melissa swallowed hard, fighting the creeping nausea.

  For now, Dang breathed evenly, his poor body pumped with the stolen antibiotics and anesthetics from the supply trucks, his body draped in stolen sterile sheeting, and his diseased leg on the verge of becoming history. An IV line, probably stolen, too, kept him hydrated. Melissa no longer cared about the thefts. The supplies were being used for a good purpose. That was what mattered.

  Simon had decided to perform the emergency surgery well after midnight while the rest of the camp slept. His men had curtained off a section of what would be the new clinic and set up spotlights for the amputation. Plastic sheeting covered the ground. The severely bloated leg was restrained within a wooden clamp Oreo had fashioned, itself surgically draped. If there was a more primitive operating room, Melissa couldn’t imagine it.

  “You doing okay?” Simon asked over his powder blue mask, his eyes sharp.

  Melissa nodded, more determined than ever to assist and do it valiantly. There really was no one else. Ralph Jackman and Aaron Neumann were somewhere in the jungle on patrol. Tristan had gone with them while Oreo maintained armed vigil outside the clinic. So Melissa and Simon had both scrubbed and dressed in stolen surgical garb to keep the procedure as sterile as possible. She wished she’d doubled her surgical mask though.

  Simon continued with his scalpel, slicing deftly through skin and tissue, inserting clamps to stop the hemorrhaging as he went. As skillful as he seemed, Melissa still looked away with every cut. Dutifully, she dabbed the sweat glistening on Simon’s forehead with a sterile wipe and kept her gaze off the patient.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Simon muttered, his brows furrowed and his eyes riveted on his work. “It’s so damned humid tonight, I’m sweating bullets. Brows again, please.”
>
  She dabbed again and kept assisting, handing him the tools he needed. By the time the wretched sawing stopped, Dang’s leg was separated just below the kneecap, and she was close to passing out. She drew in a deep breath and sent her mind across the Pacific Ocean to the East Coast of America, to Tucker. This was something he would do—save a man’s life in the middle of nowhere with only his confidence in himself and the most basic tools. But he’d do it, and he’d be proud of the job when he was done. He’d brag about it.

  That was Tucker, so much more than most, as if he’d been born to be a hero. A patriot. If anyone personified a military slogan, it was Tucker. The few. The proud. The army of one.

  With Tucker there was only one way, and it was always up and over, forever forward. Not once that she could recall had he wasted time whining or complaining about the past. He just kept getting up each day and going to work, serving his country and putting himself in the line of danger while he did it. The man was a workaholic, born to fight the bad guys of the world. Born to win.

  “Can you hand me the sutures?” Simon asked, nodding at the medical tray beside the surgery table. “I’m not sure what size. Give me the one with the biggest needle. That should work for now.”

  Melissa sized the sutures up and handed the already threaded larger needle to Simon. She’d met Tucker during an especially difficult time in her life. She’d just lost Brady and her reason to live, or so it had seemed. Every day was impossibly hard to get through then, and she’d fallen victim to the biggest scam on the planet—the one that offered a ray of hope where she’d thought she saw none. She shook her head thinking about how foolish she’d been. That hope had ended up being a siphon on her heart and a trap. A scam.

  Alex ended up sending a team to retrieve her, but in the process they ran into an FBI agent already imbedded deep inside the cult. Things had gone bad. Tucker had been knifed. He’d ended up at Melissa’s cabin, and from that moment on, she could barely stand not to look at him. He’d drawn her in with that sheer animal magnetism of his, that cocky male power of a man who knew why he’d been created. Darn him.