by Zoe Dawson
Maybe before BUD/S, before SEAL training he would have reacted differently, but now he was different, leaner, stronger, so much more than the boy she’d met in that bar. He was supporting her because he understood. Her heart felt suddenly too big for her chest. He would have killed for his sister, maybe he even had.
“You already carry the burden of losing your sister. I would die if you also lost yourself,” he said gruffly.
She closed her eyes. “I want to kill him, Atticus, with everything inside me. I don’t know if I can let it go.”
Hemingway exhaled heavily and pressed his cheek against the top of her head. “Then if that’s what you want, babe.”
She closed her eyes tighter and swallowed hard. “Thank you.”
He nodded as she slid both arms around him and hugged him hard. She hung onto him for a long time.
He slid down so he was face to face with her. He smiled a soft, lopsided smile, his eyes smoky with emotion. “Can we talk about what you whispered to me when I was deep inside your beautiful body?”
She feigned innocence, reaching out and cupping his face, the scratch of his stubble rough against her palm. “What would that be? Cavemen? You want to talk about cavemen?”
He chuckled. “You are so damn sassy. You know what. You know what I want.”
She forced a droll tone into her voice. “Do I, sandman?”
“Yes, you do.”
Atticus Sinclair had been her catalyst. He had been right from the very first. He had tempted her, teased her and taught her about sacrifice, determination, and courage. She wanted a life with him more than anything, but killing Bates stood between them. She was beginning to believe that letting it go and taking what she wanted had been planted in her heart when she watched a brave and selfless SEAL candidate anchor a boat, catch and hold his unconscious boat crew member, and save his boat crew.
“I love you, Atticus. I don’t want to be away from you anymore. I don’t want distance and noncommunication. I want to see you when you come home and be with you, build a life that we can be proud of and bring new life to nurture and grow. It’s what Maddy would have wanted.”
That goofy grin faded, and he dug at his eyes, then met her gaze. “I have been waiting for you to say that. I love you, Shea. You taught me about pure, real love. I had never experienced it before, and I’m glad I never had. You are in my heart and through this whole training to be a SEAL, I never once stopped thinking about you. It’s more than I ever dreamed it would be, and you are more than I ever dreamed I could have. Marry me. Be mine forever.”
She slipped her fingers over his lips, working at releasing the tightness in her throat so she could speak. “Ask me that again after this is all over.”
Gathering her up in a rough embrace, he caught the back of her head and held her tight against him. “I will,” he said gruffly. “You can bet your beautiful ass, I will.”
At six am or zero six hundred and after a cup of strong coffee, Hemingway’s team fast roped out of the helicopter as it hovered over the dense jungle. Max went down with Jugs clipped to his harness, and Shea went down clipped to Hemingway, face to face. She held onto his arms and he smiled. “It’s a blast, right?”
“Oh, yeah, a blast,” she responded wryly, looking down. The ground seemed too far away.
Bates was lowered on his own. When they were all on the ground and unclipped, Shea pulled out a map.
Dodger said, “It’s that way, mate.” He pointed to the north and grinned.
“Human GPS,” Mad Max growled.
“Take point, Max,” Fast Lane said. “Dragon, Pit, Saint, 2-Stroke cover our six.” They moved to the back of the line sandwiching Bates and her in the middle. Hemingway positioned himself in front of her. All of them carried large packs. She had her own backpack, but it wasn’t nearly as heavy as the ones they humped. “Move out.”
She was dressed in khaki pants, a short sleeved green safari shirt, and a vest over top. The jungle was steamy, moisture dripped, and the air was filled with water. She was drenched in a matter of minutes.
The sounds around her were filled with the movement of creatures, the drop of stuff from trees. A small green iguana skittered toward their path, saw Jugs, changed direction and vanished into the thicket. She noticed broken branches. Max was following those. Red and blue Macaws called from trees, blurs of color between the thick cover.
They walked for an hour, moving through thick jungle, a wall of green in front of them, the trail the Marines had left extremely easy to follow. As they approached some granite cliffs, she noticed something just at the edge of the rocks. She touched Hemingway’s pack. When Jugs barked, they surged forward.
They followed the Malinois. Then the line stopped, and she couldn’t see a thing, until she shouldered all the six-feet-something men out of the way. She gasped and stopped dead as whatever had agitated Jugs was revealed.
“Lance Corporal Thomas Schellenberg,” Shea said.
“He’s been dead for about three days, I’d say,” Saint said, crouching beside the body. “No gunshots. He was beaten to death, tortured.”
“Where’s Hanson and Taggert?” Bates asked, sounding truly worried about his nephew. If the man had a heart, it was smaller than the Grinch’s, she was sure.
She looked across the rocky ground toward the edge of the jungle. The trail was wider, more broken. She left them and walked toward the area. Hemingway broke off and followed her.
“You shouldn’t—”
“There was a large force that came through here,” she said, fingering a broken branch. “Whoever killed Schellenberg, probably has Hanson and Taggert. We need to go this way.”
“Good eye,” Fast Lane said. Turning to his team, he made a point of gripping his weapon. “Keep it tight and your heads on a swivel. I don’t think these hostiles are going to like us raining on their parade.” His next command was one word. “Dragon.”
The SEAL took off into the jungle. “He’s going to scope it out and report back to us,” Hemingway said.
“Recon.” She smiled.
As they moved back into the jungle, Dragon’s voice came over the comms. “LT, there’s a bunch of guys here—six, four of them look American, two Hispanic, armed to the teeth, watching an old farmhouse. Can’t determine their purpose. There’s a perimeter patrol, more tangos with autos. Look like drug runners to me.”
“Copy that. Let’s have a chat,” Fast Lane said.
“You stay here,” he said to her and Bates. The look on his face told her Bates wasn’t happy, but even he realized these guys were better at getting the drop on the men in black.
She tried to keep her eyes on the SEALs, but as they disappeared, her nerves drew taut. Then suddenly, they burst out of the jungle, weapons at the ready.
One of the men started to speak in rapid Spanish, and a blond guy stepped forward with his hands raised. “Whoa, DEA,” he said. “DEA.”
“Identification,” Fast Lane barked.
“I’m reaching for it,” he cautioned as he pulled out a brown leather case and flipped it open.
Max moved forward with Jugs. “Stay still. He doesn’t like any quick movements.” He took the badge and the guy froze everything except his eyes as he looked down at Jugs, panting and showing those long, white canines.
“What’s your purpose here?” Fast Lane asked as Max nodded, handed back his badge and retreated with Jugs.
“We’ve been tracking this group from Argentina.” He slipped his badge back under his vest. They are part of the Corta Cartel. I think they were hunting these three. We don’t know why.”
“Don’t tell me you just watched as they killed that Marine back there.”
“No, we came across him dead already.” Regret filled his voice. “I’ve already contacted the American Embassy and the Marine Corps to get him out of here.”
“Are you going to just sit here, while they murder the other two?”
“We’re outgunned and were waiting for backup, but I’m not sure
those two can survive.” On cue there was a blood curdling scream and the sound of a man yelling obscenities.
“Now you’re reinforced.”
“SEALs?”
“And NCIS. We were tasked with finding the Marines.”
The DEA agent nodded. “Special Agent Todd Miles, glad to have you with us.”
“This is what’s going to happen,” Fast Lane said.
Shea and Bates were moved back, and she watched the swift and deadly raid. The cartel members didn’t know what hit them. There was loud gunfire as she stayed undercover on her knees, tense and hoping for only casualties on the cartel side of the battle.
Suddenly, a gun lodged into the middle of her back, and Bates grabbed her by the hair. He pulled her head back, the tendons of her throat protesting.
“I know what you’re doing, bitch, and I’m afraid you’re going to meet with a terrible accident, just like your sister. Move.”
He dragged her to her feet and pushed her through the jungle, back to the cliffs. “Climb.” She did what she was ordered, and when they reached the top, he said. “You should have minded your own business, just like your damn sister. It was easy to get her out on the wharf. She was so dedicated to the Navy.”
She couldn’t help it. She punched him in the face, and he reeled back. He’d actually murdered her sister! She grabbed his gun hand and twisted his wrist, breaking bones, and kicked his legs out from under him. “I’m not going to be as easy to kill as my sister, you bastard.”
She shoved him down to the ground, setting her knee hard into the middle of his shoulder blades, pulled out her gun and racked the slide, then set the cold steel against the back of his head. Her whole body shook.
“I have money. You’ll be set for life.”
“Do you think I care about money?” she bit out
“Shea.” She turned to find Hemingway standing there. “Babe, don’t. He’s not worth it.”
“Please,” Bates whispered. “Listen to him.”
Shea stared blindly at the back of his head, thinking how the bullet would rip through his skull, and he would cease to exist. But would he take the very best of her with him? Every barrier she had erected was in pieces at her feet. She had convinced herself that she was getting revenge for her sister’s death, but that had been her protective cover, her excuse, something to hide behind.
She couldn’t use that excuse anymore. She’d already let the grief in last night, her tears a homage to her sister and their love. Maddy would want her to be happy.
And, at this moment, Maddy was the only person who mattered. She set the safety and pulled the gun away. “Flex cuff this bastard,” she said and climbed back down the cliff.
She breathed in the steamy air, closing her eyes as her heart slowed. When she opened them, the sun glinted off…metal? She frowned and walked toward it.
Crouching down, she dug the object out of the soil, brushed off the caked dirt.
Her heart lurched to a stop and she closed her eyes, certain that her mind was playing tricks on her. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. Her legs suddenly trembling, she dropped down to her knees, her heart hammering so hard, it felt like a stampede in her chest.
Hemingway said, “What’s going on, babe?”
She turned toward him and held out the object. His face changed as he recognized what she was holding.
A dog tag.
It read:
PALMER
J. L.A POS
224 45 6789
USMC L
NO PREFERENCE
Jason. Oh, God, what happened to you?
17
Shea sat across from Pedro Gomez. Still reeling from finding Jason’s dog tag. They came in pairs, but the chain must have been broken. She couldn’t help wondering if he was dead or alive. In the same vicinity, they’d found his ragged, bloody and torn BDU top, his name stitched above the pocket.
Gomez stared at her, his dark eyes so cold, she could feel it drop ten degrees in the room. “Why did you murder Thomas Schellenberg and torture those other two Marines?”
In heavily accented English, he spat, “They are thieves. During the earthquake in my country, Laguna Blanca was devastated, and the Marines were sent in two years ago. They got tipped off about our stash house at Laguna Naick Neck, also devastated, and stole two hundred and fifty million dollars. We only discovered their identities after the traitor was found out, and we tracked them here. The gringo died because he wouldn’t tell us where the money was and as incentive for the other two to give us the location.”
She rose and closed the file. She left the room and said to the Agent Miles. “He’s all yours.”
She walked a few short steps down the hall to the next interrogation room. Unfortunately, Taggert had been killed in the assault at the farmhouse, which left only Bates’s nephew, Brendon Hanson. His uncle was currently cooling his heels in the Asunción jail, waiting for an NCIS escort back to San Diego where he was going to be charged with treason and murder.
Saint had patched Hanson up, as Taggert had taken the brunt of the torture. When she opened the door, Hanson barely looked up. He knew his career and his freedom were over and that he was going to be incarcerated and disgraced for a long time. He sat quietly, his eyes red-rimmed.
She sat down in the chair. “What happened to my brother?” she said, her voice calm and firm.
He fiddled with his dog tags, making a musical metal sound. She was reminded all over again that Jason could be dead like Maddy. It was almost more than she could bear. She slammed her hand down on the table and pulled out the photos of his dog tag and BDU top. “What happened to my brother?”
He looked at the pictures, then looked away. “We didn’t mean for it to happen,” he said, his voice breaking. “It was an accident. Everything went wrong.”
“Start at the beginning.”
“We were sent to Argentina on a humanitarian deployment. It was awful. So much devastation.” He leaned back, his bruises and cuts a stark reminder of what the cartel was capable of when their money was stolen. “There was this guy always around. He’d bring us alcohol and coke.” He took a heavy breath. “It helped to forget pulling all those bodies out of the rubble.” He reached for the bottle of water and took a few sips, then bowed his head. “He told us about a stash house that was full of money. He said it would be easy to take what we wanted, and he would take a small fee. He could get us a helicopter to fly it to a safe hiding place, and we could come back and claim it. No one would suspect us.”
He rubbed at his eyes and finally met her gaze. “Jason overheard us planning it. We couldn’t take the chance that he would tell our commanding officer. We would be court-martialed. We kidnapped him and flew the chopper to that outcrop of rocks. But he got the drop on us, took the chopper and money. We thought he was long gone, but he wasn’t. He was gone for six hours. When he got back, he told us he was taking us in. The money was gone. He said he’d hidden it where we’d never find it.” He swallowed and took another sip of water, then leaned his forearms on the table. “Taggert lost it. He lunged at Jason, and he went over the cliff.” He choked up and tears streamed from his eyes. “We thought he was dead. I swear. We didn’t think he could survive that fall.” He tried to reach for her hands, but she jerked away from him. “We took the chopper back, then showed up for duty like nothing happened.”
“And the quarter of a billion dollars?”
“Lost. Only Jason knew where it was. If his body wasn’t at the bottom of the cliff, I don’t know what happened to him. I swear.”
He tried to reach for her again, but she eluded him. “I’m sorry, Agent Palmer. We didn’t mean to hurt him. We just were blinded by all that money. I’ve never seen so much. We only took a fraction of it.”
“Was it worth it?” she asked, rising.
He bowed his head and choked out, his voice breaking. “No. It wasn’t.” When she headed for the door, he said, “Wait! There’s more.” She turned back to him. “They did bad things t
o Joe. He told them everything.”
“Everything?”
“Yes, they know about Jason, and if he’s alive, they’re going to be hunting him.”
Back at the conference room, she filled out her report, then filed it. Her life was going to change. Had already changed. She picked up her cell phone and pressed Rebecca’s auto dial. She answered on the first ring.
“Shea. What happened?”
“I just sent you the report. But I’ll give you the cliff notes.” She told Rebecca everything, shrewdly leaving out her whole plan to take her revenge on Bates.
“You have been busy. But I could have read the report. Why the call?”
“I don’t want to work undercover anymore.”
There was quiet on the other end of the line. Was she disappointed? “That is excellent timing. Kai Talbot has been promoted to Supervisory Special Agent in Charge of the Pendleton Office. We have an opening for an agent with your background. Interested?”
Shea grinned. “You wily bitch. You expected this.”
“Mak and Griff aren’t the only ones who saw how attached you were to that cute, hunky SEAL. I was hoping you would be that smart.”
“I guess I am.”
Rebecca took a heavy breath. “I’m sorry about your sister, Bate’s role in murdering her, and about your brother. But if he survived the fall, why hasn’t he come forward? He thwarted a robbery of a cartel, talk about integrity. A quarter of a billion dollars split four ways…”
“Jason was dedicated to the Marines, his principles as strong as Semper Fi.”
“I’ll put someone on the case, if you like.”
“I appreciate it, Rebecca, but I want to find him. Is that okay with the agency?”
“I’ll make it so, just…don’t get your hopes up too high.”
“My gut says he’s alive, but it’s odd that he’s still missing.”
“If anyone can get to the bottom of it, you can.”
