Oh, there were so many responses Rebecca wanted to give. Like, “Yes, and I finally caught you in the act of not having the household in order.” Usually by the time Rebecca got home all the damage was already concealed.
Instead she just nodded. She wasn’t going to give her mother-in-law the pleasure of getting into a fight. Rebecca had the high ground and “Mammy” knew it.
“We also owe you a new microwave,” Mr. Brandt added then shrank back as Mrs. Brandt gave her husband a withering stare.
Then Mrs. Brandt’s chest puffed out. “Well perhaps if --”
Rebecca held up her hand. “Don’t. Just don’t. If you go there, then there will be a fight and I will have to tell Vin.”
That backed her mother-in-law off. Vincent Brandt loved his mother dearly, but he drew the line at her giving Rebecca a tongue-lashing. Those were the few times that mother and son quarreled.
“Just go,” Rebecca suggested firmly.
Mrs. Brandt’s cheeks puffed in and out, making her almost look like a cartoon. Rebecca was braced for steam coming out the woman’s ears.
Finally Mrs. Brandt turned on her heel. “Let’s go, Roger.”
As the woman passed Rebecca she sneered. “Nice manicure.”
Rebecca looked down. She’d only gotten a clear coat. Clearly a sin in Mrs. Brandt’s book. But Rebecca hated worrying about chips and maintaining the cuticle line. This was just so much simpler.
Which is why Mrs. Brandt hated it so much. Rebecca was certain the older woman had quite the lecture on a military wife’s duty. Rebecca was certain because she’d heard it a hundred times before.
But today, it looked like she would be spared the 1950’s tirade.
Certainly a win.
Once her in-laws were out of the house, Rebecca set to work.
She had a house to put back together.
* * *
Brandt studied the hangar with thermal goggles from their perch atop an adjacent hanger. The scene below was the usual. Six men set up in pretty standard military formation, waiting for them at their private jet.
They would have to find out later how the enemy got their 411. Right now they really needed that jet. That spat atop the high-rise wasn’t going to go unnoticed, and Brandt would really rather not get arrested by the Hong Kong police.
So this private plane was kind of important.
Besides, Brandt was tired of tip-toeing around. He wanted this over.
He turned to his sniper. “Well?”
“Give me the word,” Davidson said, bracing his sniper rifle against shoulder.
This felt almost unfair.
Those poor men down there thought they had the advantage. Of course, that advantage was that they were going to ambush Brandt and his team. Mow them down in a hail of bullets.
Such arrogance.
This was Alpha Tango. You didn’t try to sneak into a hangar with six men and take them down. That was just insulting.
Okay, so maybe he didn’t feel nearly as sorry for them as he thought he did.
“Do it.”
Davidson didn’t nod, he just sprang into action. Three quick shots, three holes in the side of the metal hangar, and three men down. The other men tried to run out of the hangar, but Lopez took them down not a foot outside the door.
One second, there was a trap getting ready to be sprung. The next, all the men were on the ground.
Terrorists really should stick to suicide-bombing civilians.
Because up against real soldiers? The terrorists were fertilizer.
CHAPTER 3
The phone’s sharp ring startled Rebecca out of sleep. She blinked twice to find it was a little after one in the morning. Diving for the phone, Rebecca didn’t want it to wake up the kids, she answered.
“Yes?”
It was a blocked number. There was the pause that felt like it was ten years before Brandt’s voice came on the line.
“Babe, I’m so sorry. Things got so hectic, I just forgot to call.”
“Don’t worry about it as long as you’re safe,” Rebecca breathed out. And she meant it. If he’d been out with the boys at a bar, she’d have been livid with him for not calling, but she’d been out in the field often enough to know that a phone call just wasn’t always on the menu.
“Yes, we’re safe. Flying home. Should be back by morning, but I’ve got a ton of paperwork, so I won’t be home until the afternoon.”
“Just get home when you can,” Rebecca stated with a sigh of relief. Everything must really be fine if Brandt was talking about paperwork. The punishment for a successful mission.
“Um, babe, I’ve got four calls from Mom but no messages. Do you know what that’s about?”
Rebecca chuckled. Oh, she knew what it was about. “I think I’ll let your mother explain it.”
“That bad, huh?” Brandt said, chuckling as well.
“Again, I’m going to let her field that one herself.”
Rebecca rolled back over, cuddling back into the blankets. How she wished Brandt was here with her. He was like a furnace. Tomorrow night. Tomorrow night they’d heat up the bed in more ways than one.
“I’ve got to go, babe,” Brandt said.
“Of course. Love you,” Rebecca said although she wasn’t sure her husband heard her as the connection clicked closed.
Ah, the life of a military wife.
* * *
Bunny leaned back, feeling pretty darned good that Davidson was in the air, safe, finally.
“Any word on who attacked them in Hong Kong?” Bunny asked Stark just before she yawned. It was late. Really late. She was still trying to adjust to life that didn’t involve lots and lots of painkillers.
The doctors had been concerned that maybe she was addicted to them and were withholding her discharge until she could prove she could function without them. Little did they know that Bunny hated the feeling of being high. How people bought Oxycotin on the street and risked jail time for it, Bunny would never understand.
She hated the feeling of being disconnected, fuzzy, not in control. Who wanted to feel like that? She’d rather endure the lingering pain than feel useless, sitting in this attic watching Davidson put himself in danger and not being able to do anything about it.
“Okay, the best we can do is identify one man as a Peruvian national,” Stark said. “Other than that we are getting zip.”
“Peruvians in Hong Kong? After Brandt and the team?” Bunny reflected back. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Stark’s mother chimed in. “Maybe the team crossed paths with the Peruvians before? Maybe this was payback?”
Bunny shook her head. She knew each and every one of Alpha Tango’s missions since their inception. She even went all the way back to Colonel Prosper’s missions. The commander of Alpha Tango just before Brandt. She didn’t remember any missions in Peru.
“I don’t think so.”
Stark sighed. “I’ll start doing deep background then, trying to sort out why the Peruvians are so pissed off at the team.”
Bunny gave a vague nod.
She didn’t like it when she didn’t have the answers.
The unknown was usually very, very unkind to them.
* * *
Rebecca awoke slowly. The sun was barely up, just peeking through the blinds. She had a few minutes before she had to get the kids up for school.
Her eyes focused on the package on her dresser. The Walgreen’s bag. There was no sense in delaying. She might as well get this over with.
She grabbed the box out of the bag. A pregnancy test. It was ridiculous. She shouldn’t need one. She was not only on the pill, but used vaginal contraceptives as well. She really, really, really, wasn’t ready to have more kids.
But her lack of a period for the last seven weeks had made her nervous.
Hence the pregnancy test.
Sighing, she headed to the bathroom. After doing the deed, Rebecca set the test onto a piece of tissue and waited the longest two minutes of he
r life.
She glared at the white patch. It needed to stay white. Unfortunately no matter how she tried to will it white, a stark blue line appeared.
No.
Rebecca hung her head. She loved her kids, but another one or more on the way? She was barely holding it together as it was. How could she do diapers again? How?
Well, she guessed it didn’t matter how worried she was. This was happening.
Not that she had to go into this pregnancy quietly. She had to get the kids up and to school.
But after that?
After that, Brandt was going to have more than paperwork to worry about.
* * *
Brandt didn’t feel his age all that much on missions. Sure a creak or ache worked its way in, but the adrenaline did a nice job of covering up the worst of it. No, it was the next morning that he felt his age.
And after a long-ass flight trying futilely to get some sleep? That was when he felt seventy. And then to sit and do paperwork for hours? It was just baking the ache into his joints. Especially his knee. Not that he would admit that to anyone. Certainly not his doctors and absolutely not his wife.
A knock came at his door.
“Enter,” Brandt responded.
An athletic Asian man entered. Lawrence Ki. The soldier was structurally larger than most Asians. As a matter of fact, he gave Brandt a run for his money.
“Lieutenant,” Brandt said, waving the man to a chair.
“I’m not a lieutenant anymore,” Ki stated. “Sir.”
Minor details.
“Sit, sit,” Brandt encouraged.
Ki looked around the office like he couldn’t believe he was actually here.
“Do you know who we are?”
Ki chuckled. “Um, everyone knows team Alpha Tango.”
“So you know who I am?”
The man nodded vigorously. “Sergeant Vincent Brandt, leader of Alpha Tango.”
Brandt grinned. “Good, then I need you to tell me exactly what happened in Iraq.”
The man’s smile fell as he frowned. “Sir, I’m sorry but I can’t. Part of my honorable discharge was based on a non-disclosure agreement.”
Brandt leaned forward. “Who am I again?”
Ki’s eyes flicked back and forth across Brandt’s features. “I understand, sir, but I just can’t.”
Not the answer Brandt wanted, but at the least the man who claimed he was no longer a lieutenant was still calling Brandt, “sir.”
“Son, there are few people in the world you can trust completely. I am one of them and if I ask you to tell me something, I expect you to tell me.”
Ki shifted in his seat then finally sighed. “I’m sure you’ve read the report.”
Brandt nodded. “Of course, but I need to hear it from you.”
The man lowered his head. Shame covering his features. Brandt felt bad for the man, but he needed the words to come out of the lieutenant’s lips.
“We were on a routine night patrol. The village should have been quiet, under curfew due to some chatter,” Ki said as if he was running a tape in his head. Brandt had seen it a thousand times. PTSD. Was Ki past the worst of it or in the thick of it?
“And?” Brandt prompted.
“There were lights on in a household so we went to investigate. We knocked and were allowed in,” Ki stated. “It was clear that the house was filled with women and children and the only reason the light was on was because they were cleaning up a child who had gotten sick in the night.”
“So what went wrong?” Brandt asked.
Ki looked down at his hands for a moment. “I believe it was a backfire, sir. It was not a shot as was reported.
Brandt nodded for Ki to continue.
The man took in a deep breath. “The Captain shot first and the others joined in. I tried...” Ki gulped twice. “I tried to stop them, but by the time they stopped everyone was…everyone…”
Brandt knew what came next. “You tried to report the incident to your superiors?”
Ki seemed to be more himself as he inclined his head. “No one wanted to hear my version, they all just wanted me to sign the ‘official’ story that the women shot first.”
Brandt had indeed read the report and all the things between the lines. “Then they planted a gun on one of the women and fired it so she would have gun powder residue on her palm?”
Ki simply nodded.
Brandt had assumed so. It was possibly the laziest cover up in the history of cover ups. The dark side of the military. He knew of this Captain. This wasn’t his first rodeo.
Apparently the man liked to shoot first and never really answer any questions and he was a bully enough to get his men to go along with him. But not Ki. Which was why the lieutenant was sitting in Brandt’s office.
“Do you miss it? Serving your country?” Brandt asked.
“More than anything. I’m an Air Marshall now, but really I just ride around the country reading my Kindle.”
“And if you had the opportunity to serve again?” Brandt asked.
“I would jump at it, but there is no way any of the Armed Services is going to let me serve, not after everything that happened. Everything I said.”
Brandt signed a paper in front of him, then turned it to Ki. “That statement isn’t exactly accurate. Just sign here and you’re back in.”
“Back in what?” Ki asked, scanning the document with his gaze.
“Point man for Alpha Tango,” Brandt explained.
“No,” Ki responded, pushing the paper away. “I can’t. I just…”
“You can do whatever you like, son,” Brandt stated. “You can sign it and join or go back to your Grisham marathon. It’s your choice.”
Ki looked near tears, gulping frequently. “But why in the world would you want me?”
Brandt smiled, leaning back in his chair. “About the only thing I truly worry about is buying into my own press. Starting to cut corners, bending my morals, starting to believe the ends justify the means.”
Ki was clearly confused, but it would all become clear in a few moments.
“And my men, well, they are devoted to me and unlike other squads, we don’t rotate every few years. I’m afraid they trust me, perhaps a tad too much. They aren’t looking at my actions critically.”
The lieutenant’s eyes narrowed. The man looked like he was starting to understand where Brandt was going.
“I need someone who isn’t afraid to speak truth to power. Someone who will question everything I do. Someone just like you.”
“Sir,” Ki said then had to clear his throat. “I can’t tell you how honored I am for you to ask, but I just can’t see myself in uniform again.”
Brandt shrugged. “Then I wish you the best of luck, son.”
He rose and Ki snapped to his feet. Brandt went to pull the paperwork back, but Ki’s fingers held it in place.
“Sir, you are serious about this? I would be your point man? On active duty?”
“Yes,” Brandt responded simply. There was no more pitch. Either the man wanted the position or he didn’t. There could be no gray area.
Ki raised the pen and signed at the bottom of the page. “When do I start?”
Brandt smiled. “You’ll meet the men and get suited up right now.”
All doubt evaporated from Ki’s face as he turned to meet his new team.
“I need to let the Marshall Service know…”
“Already taken care of,” Brandt responded, patting the man on the back.
“Thank you, sir,” Ki said, then his face clouded again. “But I outrank you, won’t that be a problem?”
“I’ve taken care of that too,” Brandt answered as they walked out of the office.
* * *
Davidson held a package that had just been hand delivered from the Pentagon. He shook it. Nothing rattled. What the heck would need to be hand delivered from the Pentagon?
“Hey! Is this the new guy?” Lopez asked.
Davidson looked up to f
ind a rather buff Asian guy. He looked like a point man. They had been working for months without a point man. Davidson didn’t blame Brandt. The fit had to be just right or it could jeopardize the whole team.
“This is lieutenant Lawrence Ki,” Brandt explained.
“Larry,” the man said, extending his hand to Davidson.
Lieutenant? Things were going to get awkward around here it seemed.
Davidson shook his hand, then Ki moved on to Lopez.
“Just get your will in order,” Lopez said.
“I’m sorry?” Ki responded rather appropriately.
Lopez chuckled as he did whenever he was pulling someone’s leg. “Brandt didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me?” Ki queried.
“That our point men are like drummers with Spinal Tap. They are cursed, that’s all.”
Lopez wasn’t wrong. Point men didn’t have a super long life-span on Alpha Tango, but were they cursed or was that just a function of their job? Although not a one of them died kicking in any doors. It was much more complicated than that.
Brandt clapped Ki on the back. “Don’t let them worry you a bit. Our last point man was just promoted to commander of his own team.”
He gave Lopez that look like, “not now, Lopez, not now.”
The corporal complied but couldn’t help but to still chuckle. Davidson just shook his head. Lopez would be Lopez.
Brandt held his hand out to Davidson. “I see they finally got here.”
Davidson handed the small box over to his sergeant. Brandt tore open the box to reveal a stack of insignias.
“Looks like Christmas,” Brandt said, handing out the shoulder applets.
Davidson looked at his. “Um, this says Corporal.”
“Mine is Staff Sergeant?” Lopez said sounding thoroughly confused.
Brandt pulled his out. First Lieutenant.
“How?” Davidson asked.
“I’ve turned down all of our promotions because I felt like it just got me all that closer to a forced retirement, but even I have to succumb to the passing of time.”
“No, but how?” Davidson asked. “These are major jumps in rank.”
Brandt shrugged. “They just granted all the promotions at once, so that our ranks reflected the team’s successes and prepared us for a lieutenant in our midst.”
The 3rd Cycle of the Betrayed Series Collection: Extremely Controversial Historical Thrillers (Betrayed Series Boxed set) Page 27
