Shadow in the Mountain (Shadow SEALs)

by KaLyn Cooper

  “I’m going to go get the checklist started,” Blade announced and handed the keys to the car to Nagasi.

  The butler turned his attention to Xena. “The extra items you asked for are in the cargo hold. All the munitions are armed and ready.”

  “Thank you, Nagasi.”

  The older man scanned Xena head to toe. “Please send the dress back with the next courier. I believe it can be salvaged.” He repeated the process with Ryker. “Same for you. You may keep the shoes, but I seriously doubt you’ll be needing them where you’re going.”

  Ryker hated to admit they were actually very comfortable, especially for dress shoes. “Thanks. They fit very well.”

  “They should. Berluti Scritto uses only the finest Italian leather.” The butler looked at him expectantly, as though he should recognize that the brand or name.

  Ryker had no clue.

  Xena leaned over and whispered in his ear. “They run about two thousand dollars a pair.”

  Ryker wasn’t sure if he wanted to leap out of the footwear and give them back or hug the butler. “Thank you. Again. I really appreciate them.”

  The whine of the engine drew everyone’s attention.

  “We need to go,” Xena announced.

  “Safe travels.” Nagasi turned and walked toward the car.

  As they approached the helicopter, Blade got out of the pilot seat and walked around the helicopter, touching and checking. Ryker was astonished when Xena lifted her magnificent dress practically to her waist and crawled in the pilot seat.

  “Jump in the back,” she ordered over her shoulder.

  As he settled in the surprisingly comfortable seat, Blade handed him a helmet from the copilot position. “Thanks for covering our girl. I’m Jim Oleson. Call me Blade.”

  “Ryker Tufano. They used to call me Trek.”

  The slightly older man chuckled. “Ryker on Star Trek?”

  “Yeah.” He never really cared for his handle and didn’t want to continue this conversation with Xena’s lover, so he popped the helmet on his head. Perfect timing. The engines started to scream.

  “Ryker, once we get home, I could use a drink.” Xena’s voice came through the comm system clearly. “There’s a whole lot I need to show you before we leave tomorrow morning.”

  Blade’s head popped up and his gaze swung to Xena. “Your dad has new intel.”

  “Let’s hope it’s good news.” Xena lifted the bird off the ground so smoothly Ryker didn’t realize they were airborne until he could see the lights from Addis. “I need to wrap up this mission before mother’s party next week. She’d kill me if I missed it.”

  Chapter 8

  Ryker peered out the window as they flew away from Addis but as soon as they topped a mountain range, the city lights disappeared. Moonlight reflected off several lakes below. He realized they were flying Southwest up the East African Rift Valley toward the mountain range that separated Ethiopia from South Sudan and Kenya.

  In just under an hour, Xena touched down like a butterfly. The woman could certainly handle the little bird. He wondered what other helicopters or airplanes she was licensed to fly.

  As he stepped out of the helicopter, he was surprised to see a ten-thousand-foot-long landing strip. Security lights shone from huge hangars that looked nearly new. This airport was much nicer than the one at the country’s capitol. Ryker didn’t remember seeing any city large enough to need such an exquisite airport, least of all in this part of Ethiopia.

  “Perfect landing.” Blade threw his arm around Xena’s shoulders then whispered something into her ear.

  Giggling, she twisted away and playfully smacked his arm. “Quit fishing for compliments. It’s rude.”

  Yep. She and the bodyguard were involved.

  When the two lovers headed to the hold, Ryker followed. Like a human chain, they passed the bags from one to another with Xena at the end seeming to sort them into piles. As she placed the last bag, an all-white Land Rover drove directly to them, backing up to the mounds.

  “Batman.” Xena exuded delight as she greeted the driver with salt-and-pepper hair and a completely white beard. “Have you heard from Daddy?”

  “Yes. He’s on his way back. I wasn’t sure which one of you would arrive first.” He glanced at the vehicle. “Load up. I’ll have someone from the house bring the Rover back here for your dad. I need to check the progress of the mechanics working on the Huey. You might need it.”

  Blade grabbed several bags and started stacking them in the back. Ryker picked up a bag to help. “Thanks, but this is a one-man job. You’ll just be in my way.”

  Ryker wondered if he was talking about loading the truck or Xena.

  Dark Angel started to move, catching Ryker’s attention. He watched the small tractor pull it nearly to the doors before they opened. Crammed inside the hangar were dozens of helicopters of every shape, size, and manufacturer.

  “Where are we? Is there some city nearby and helicopters are the only transportation?”

  Xena giggled. “No. That’s our helicopter hangar.” She pointed to the smaller hangar across the runway. “That one is for fixed-wing and the newest building is for the fighter jets and bombers.”

  Totally confused, Ryker looked around. “Is this a military base?” Perhaps it was the Ethiopian equivalent of the U.S. National Guard. Several men were walking around in camouflage, both desert and jungle, armed to the teeth. The uniforms were clean yet slightly worn while their boots were good quality but hard-used. Two-story buildings that looked like standard barracks stood just behind the hangars.

  “You could call it a military base, and not be wrong, but you wouldn’t be right either.” Xena and Blade exchanged a glance.

  “Everything here belongs to her father.” Blade picked up the next bag and grinned at Ryker. “The man is quite an entrepreneur…among other things. He provides what’s needed all over eastern and central Africa.”

  Schooling his face, Ryker bit back his realization. Xena’s father was a mercenary. But at this point, he didn’t care. Obviously, Charley trusted them. He would too. The most important thing was rescuing his teammates as fast as possible. He’d work with the devil himself to make that happen.

  “You coming?” Xena called over her shoulder as she strode around to the driver’s seat.

  Once again, Ryker was surprised when Blade didn’t take the wheel. Instead, he pulled a double-barreled gun out of a holster from the back.

  “I haven’t seen a rifle over a shotgun barrel anywhere except the museum. I know they were used during the Civil War.” Ryker liked weapons of all different eras.

  “They’re useful here in Ethiopia for the same reason.” Blade scowled at him. “In case you didn’t get the memo, this country has been at war constantly for over five centuries. If you ask the professor, he’ll tell you violence in this specific area goes back to the birth of man which he considers to be right here.”

  “You expecting trouble?” Ryker crawled into the backseat.

  “Always.” Blade’s gaze swept constantly from the moment Xena hit the gas.

  It took only a few minutes before she zipped up to two steel gates. Their size was deceptive given the speed at which they opened and closed immediately after she drove through.

  The scent of flowers hit him like a baseball bat. Glancing to each side, bright blooms and greenery covered the concrete walls topped with concertina wire. Guards were positioned on opposite corners and cameras covered everything in between.

  She drove into an open garage and the door closed completely as soon as she turned off the engine. She and Blade were out of the vehicle in seconds. Ryker joined them at the back of the Rover.

  “Grab your bag,” Blade instructed as he handed a blue duffel to Xena.

  Ryker was pleased that his bag was right on top. He set it on the floor expecting to unload the rest of the packed vehicle. When the other two headed to a door at the far end of the multi-bay garage, he yelled, “What about the rest of these?�
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  “Not your concern.” Blade placed his hand on the glass scanner next to the door then entered a code.

  What the hell was with all this security? For a mercenary, her father was damned paranoid. Then, again, maybe he had a reason to be.

  Ryker made it to the door before it closed. They entered through what felt like a basement. Dirt-caked wooden boxes lined the hallway before they entered a brightly lit gymnasium-sized room filled with young men and women hunched over light tables. Bones filled every available inch of flat surface.

  Even though Xena and Blade skirted the wall, his feet wouldn’t move as his gaze swept the room.

  A girl who didn’t look old enough to drink beer sat at a table with pieces of pottery, shifting them around as though they were a puzzle. He stared at the next table where an entire human skeleton was laid out.

  A young man with a ponytail nearly to his waist set down a paintbrush and picked up a metal tool that belonged in a dental office and began scraping on a skull. At a flash from a camera, Ryker whipped his head toward the source. More young people were typing on laptops and tablets. At the far end, microscopes filled a shelf, but several girls stared at a flatscreen on the wall while a young man moved a large device that looked like an x-ray machine.

  It was the middle of the night and the room was hopping.

  “Ryker.” The way Xena said his name it was as though she’d called him more than once. “Just ignore them.”

  “Hot damn!” A woman about his age leaped from her chair and waved her arm. “I’d like everyone available to come see this. I just carbon-dated it to twenty-five thousand BC.” She held up a pelvis. “This woman—”

  “Ryker. Come on,” Xena demanded. “We’ve got a lot to go over tonight before we can go to bed.”

  Bed. With Xena. Now there was one hell of an idea.

  No. She was with Blade.

  He had to stop thinking about Xena as a woman. She was a teammate. Nothing else.

  He looked back over his shoulder one last time at the busy room and the woman lecturing. “Is this some kind of school?”

  “No.” She opened the door to the stairwell. “Well, kind of. Those are my dad’s students. Some of them are working on digs just for the hell of it, others are getting class credit, while several are working on their masters or doctorate.”

  Following Xena up the stairs was not a hardship. She was still in the beautiful gown that fell smoothly over her perfect ass, swaying with each step. The draping over her back moved side to side flashing soft tan skin, begging him to touch her there again.

  At the top of the stairs, they entered the foyer of a beautiful home…and air conditioning. Although the student area had been cool, the house was chilly. Or maybe it just felt that way because the temperature outside was still in the nineties.

  “I’ll show you to your room. You’re in the same wing as me and my brothers.” She flashed him a smile over her shoulder and headed for the open staircase. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to get out of this formal and into some comfortable clothes.”

  She pointed down a different hallway. “Meet me in the library. Second door on the right. Is five minutes enough time for you?” Before he could answer, she shook her head. “Make it ten. I want to shower. Just being around the frat boys makes me feel slimy.”

  “Ten, then.” No woman Ryker ever knew could shower and change in ten minutes. He decided he’d take a shower too. Now that the formal dinner and firefight were over, he’d let hot water help relax his tense muscles.

  When they reached the next floor, the hall seemed to go on forever in both directions. Xena turned right and so did he. They passed several doors before she opened one on the left.

  “This is yours. Bathroom is over there. The linen closet should have extra towels. Just throw the wet ones in the hamper. The staff will collect them in the morning.” Before she left, she reminded him, “Ten minutes. Hall to the right, second door on the right.”

  “Got it.” He was sure he’d be there long before her.

  He was wrong.

  Ryker was used to fast showers and dressing in a hurry, but he wanted to take his time walking to the library. The house fascinated him. Thick concrete walls painted a soft yellow with patterned tile floors were like any upscale home in Florida. His bedroom had gorgeous cherry furniture starting with the sleigh bed and matching highboy dresser with a mirror, to the long dresser underneath the flatscreen TV.

  When he stepped from his room, the items on the hall table caught his interest. Next to the colorful flower arrangement were tiny bits of bone laid out in the form of a hand with a written note: 20,000+ BC?

  He reached to pick up a piece. He’d never held anything that old in his life. Twenty thousand years before the birth of Christ. Was it even human?

  “Captivating, aren’t they?”

  Ryker snatched his hand away. He hadn’t heard Xena approach.

  The next door down the hall from his glided closed. Her room must be right next to his. He hoped she wasn’t a screamer during sex or that Blade pounded her bed against the wall. He refused to think about the two of them in bed.

  She casually picked up a long thin bone from the palm of the hand, twisting it between her thumb and forefinger as though examining it for flaws. She held it out to him.

  Carefully, Ryker took what he thought would be delicate and fragile, but it felt more like stone. “Why aren’t these in a museum?”

  Xena lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Because my dad’s not done with them. They will be eventually. In the meantime, they’re here. That’s the way Daddy does it.” She stared at the bone in his hand. “You ready to go downstairs?”

  He carefully handed her back the piece of ancient history and she placed it precisely where it belonged. At the bottom of the stairs, a table close to the downstairs door gave him pause. How could he have missed those three skulls?

  Oh, yeah. Xena’s ass. Which was now covered in a pair of light purple yoga pants. He could see the definition of each muscle as it moved. What he couldn’t see was any panty line, which meant she wasn’t wearing any.

  Holy fuck.

  But she was wearing a bra. Dark purple, the same color as the tiny midriff T-shirt that didn’t cover much.

  Xena stopped when he did, then changed directions. She nonchalantly picked up one of the skulls and rolled it hand-to-hand. Running her finger along the ragged edge of the hole in the top, she started laughing. “It looks like this poor guy had been bitten by a large animal. Given this area, it could have easily been an early version of a lion. Definitely something in the cat genus.”

  She then went on to explain why she thought this person had been attacked, and probably killed, by the bite. Ryker didn’t hear a thing. Her long, thin hands caressing the skull captivated and held his attention. He wondered what those hands would feel like holding his head in place as he licked her center until she screamed his name.

  He needed to pull his head back to reality.

  “That one looks like it needs to be cleaned before it gets sent to a museum.” Ryker had seen plenty of death and destruction in his life, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to handle the skull. Thankfully, she did not offer it to him.

  “During the rainy season, around September, he usually spends more time in the lab, but since the elections weren’t held last year, he’s been concentrating on his other business.” She gave him a quick smile. “He’s due to take a couple days and concentrate on the digs. He’ll assign this to one of his students soon.”

  She set the skull down and her smile broadened. “Want to see something really cool? Come over here and take a look at these.” She moved to another table in the foyer.

  He stared at small pieces of carved stone.

  “Daddy thinks these were toys, but the anthropologist on staff claims they may have been some kind of religious icons.” Xena scoffed. “They all want to make a name for themselves based on an original find. The big mistake they make is that the
y apply theories and ideas of today to what the world was like twenty thousand years ago. You just can’t do that. But nobody is going to tell AnnaMae what to do or how to think because she has her Ph.D. in anthropology.” Xena dragged out the last few words with disgust and disapproval woven through every syllable.

  “What’s your Ph.D. in?” Ryker asked.

  Xena laughed. “I just barely made it through college. I was homeschooled most of my life. There are certain areas I’m extremely well-versed in, anthropology being one of those fields. Archaeology, of course. I speak multiple languages but anything beyond simple math, I get lost. Thank God I have onboard computers for flying. I don’t intend to ever get a Ph.D. There are too many more important things I can do in this world that don’t require me to return to college for another five years or more to accomplish. That includes rescuing your SEAL team.”

  Chapter 9

  “When I was a child, my toys were often thousands of years old.” She set the small monkey back on the table. At least she thought it was a monkey. Although they no longer lived in Ethiopia, like the talented carver who created the tiny animals, part of them lived on forever.

  “The library is down this way.” Xena reached for Ryker’s hand then lifted it in the follow-me gesture. They’d spent most of the evening hand in hand, playing the role of being intimately involved. It felt nice to have a man by her side, especially when the frat boys showed up. They quickly got the message that she would not be dancing with them.

  She’d enjoyed talking with Ryker, sharing some of the information each had learned that evening. He seemed like a nice guy. Although she was surrounded by men most of the time, so few fell into that category. Most of the men who worked for her father were misogynistic assholes. Thank goodness her brothers had put out the word that anyone disrespecting her might find themselves shot by friendly fire.

  Her team was a completely different story. She had handpicked each and every man based on his skills and attitude toward her personally. Working out beside them every day helped prove that she was worthy of their respect. She could beat most of them on the obstacle course by focusing on balance and awareness of her center of gravity. The military had taught her how to utilize her feminine body to achieve the same goals as a man.