Protecting Braden (Custos Securities Series Book 2)

by Luna, David

  “You sound annoyed.”

  Cade shook his head. “I waited too long. I should have done it immediately. I don’t know anyone who served on the front lines who didn’t have a hard time when they returned to civilian life. I had a great therapist and I’m in a place now that I know I’m not infallible and that I did everything in my power to protect my men. That doesn’t mean I don’t regret their deaths every day, and the hole those deaths created in the lives of their families.”

  Braden did his best to soothe him with his touch, and Cade found himself talking. He explained that most of his scars came from a particular explosion that had riddled his body with shrapnel and killed two members of another team. When he returned stateside and everything had healed, he’d covered them with ink.

  He told Braden of the mission where he was captured and tortured. Cooper and his team found him using the GPS on his watch, which one of his captors had stolen. He’d been in bad shape, but had considered himself lucky as there were others there that hadn’t made it.

  There had been good ops where they were able to rescue the people they were tasked with extracting. He’d been on unconventional warfare missions where they trained foreign troops in some of their methods. He smiled when he recounted a few of their search and rescue missions where they were able to help small villages near combat zones that had been nearly destroyed. He talked about the failed missions that resulted in a death on their team. And finally, the last mission, the one that solidified his desire to get out of the military while he could still make a difference by choosing the types of jobs his team took on.

  Braden hugged him tighter and he rubbed a soothing hand down Braden’s back, which he supposed was for both of them. He hated every minute of this conversation so far and knew it wouldn’t get any better until it was over. All he could do was hope that Braden’s feelings for him wouldn’t change as a result of the recounting of his past. His memories, so vivid, came back to him in technicolor.

  Several years ago…

  The final straw was the last op and it was fucked from the word go. They’d gotten their intel last minute from an unverified source which, strangely enough, wasn’t that uncommon. They were to head into enemy territory, where there was a team of al Qaeda extremists holed up, before crossing the border to find sanctuary in the next country over. Cade felt uneasy from the beginning, from the source to the mission itself. He knew it was an op that could go FUBAR, but it had been handed down from the upper echelons and their team was chosen. Though it was their mission, it was his job to ensure that they did it in the safest way possible, which is what caused him to make a change at the last minute.

  Instead of heading out late the next day and being dropped into friendly territory, as he’d logged, he ended up arranging for his team to hitch a ride on a MH-47G Chinook Helicopter that was on its way to another base. He’d followed his gut and had kept the plans mostly to himself, only telling his senior team members, Cooper, Sawyer, and Jackson.

  He’d been honest with them, admitting he was uneasy, but that the mission was still a go. Jackson stared hard at Sawyer who had been rubbing the back of his neck and then had spoken to him using sign language. They signed back and forth for several minutes. Cade knew to let them finish their conversation before asking questions; they’d picked up a lot of ASL, having worked with Jackson for so long, but when Sawyer and Jackson got going, the speed in which they could communicate was well beyond what he could understand.

  Sawyer finally looked at Cade. “I don’t have a good feeling about it.”

  Cade looked at Sawyer, head tilted, waiting. Jackson kicked Sawyer’s foot and signed something, to which Sawyer sighed, heavily. “You know me—I have a sixth sense about these things. That day isn’t good. Can’t that be enough? It always has been in the past. You know my hunches are spot on.”

  Again, Cade didn’t say a word. He waited and glanced at Jackson who put his hands out, palms up, his fingers wiggling, signing to give Sawyer a minute. Cade sat back and stared Sawyer down until he was pacing and rubbing his hands over his head in frustration. Cade finally relented a bit. “I don’t feel like that day is a good day either. I trust your instincts, Sawyer, but I think you need to talk to me about what’s going on. It’s not as simple as you’re making it out to be, is it?”

  Sawyer paced back toward Jackson and sat down very close to him; Cade remembered it was the first time he ever got any sort of feeling that there was more there than just best friends, but he let it pass without comment. He saw Jackson lean down, elbows on his knees, and turn his face toward Sawyer, who looked back at him.

  Sawyer sighed as he looked up at Cade. “It’s more than a sixth sense. Sometimes it’s flashes, sometimes I see full scenes of something to come, other times it’s just a niggling sense that something bad is going to happen and I have to react immediately, like when I pulled Cooper away from the land mine two years ago.”

  Cooper nodded. “You said you saw the mine.”

  Sawyer shook his head. “I told you guys I saw it, but I didn’t. Something, some kind of innate sense of impending disaster comes over me and nudges me in the right direction. I knew something was going to happen to Coop, so I yanked him out of the way and the bomb experts were called in to dismantle it.”

  Cade knew immediately he had to change their plans. “Did you see a scene for tomorrow, a flash, or was it a niggling sense?”

  Sawyer rubbed the back of his neck. “A flash of some outbuildings, and at least one of us gunned down, but I can’t see who it is. When I look down, there’s blood all over my hands. That’s it, but it was enough to tell me that shit is going to go down that day if we stick to the plan.”

  Cade nodded, got up, and left without a word. He returned hours later to brief the team that they were moving their mission up and would leave on the Chinook at 1900 hours. He told everyone to hit the rack and get some shut eye and that he’d provide mission details once they were airborne. The two newbies grumbled as everyone moved to follow orders. He made eye contact with each offender, a silent warning that they’d be having a discussion at a later time, and things quieted down immediately.

  Cade saw Cooper move to get up, but he signed ‘don’t ask’ and walked out of the room; the less everyone knew, the better. What he was doing was against regs, regardless of the fact that he was responsible for their team and all of the decisions fell to him. Special Forces teams don’t operate under the authority of ground command, they answer to a combatant command that directs military forces within a set geographical boundary, regardless of service branch.

  Their mission was to get in, kill the leader, and get out, while taking as many of the extremists out as possible. Cade was highly suspicious of their intel, so as far as he was concerned, they were going in blind. He spent the flight outlining their objectives, assigning specific duties to his team, and going over alternate plans. He tasked himself with getting in, killing the leader, who was supposedly a highly valued member of the extremist militia, and getting back out, with Cooper as his back up. They’d drop in a small town close to the border and would have to hoof it five klicks to their intended location, which was an old abandoned security checkpoint and other outbuildings, temporarily being used as an al Qaeda hideout, according to their intel.

  Their insertion occurred without incident, but instead of making Cade feel better, it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention. He shared a look with Sawyer who merely shook his head. Under the cover of night, they made it to their destination, an outcropping of rocks just outside of the checkpoint, and began reconnaissance.

  The tangos were packing up, readying their camp to move out, most likely with the dawn. There was a harried and frenetic energy about them. Cade had his team stand down, in order to wait and watch for his signal. Explosives were being set with trip wires all over the makeshift camp. Either someone had let them know that they would have company the next day, or they just happened to be getting ready to leave at precise
ly the right moment. Cade didn’t believe in coincidences.

  His team was dressed in local garb so it would be easy for them to get in and out once things settled down for the night. Ironically, the tangos’ actions made things much easier for them. Cade quickly explained that they’d be rewiring all of those explosives to detonate once Cade had completed his task and they were free and clear of the security checkpoint.

  They waited for nearly two hours until people took to their makeshift sleeping quarters. Cade had the group disperse to take care of their individual assignments, and he walked quietly into the interior of the camp with Cooper beside him. Those that were worth the least would be around the outer edges of the base; those that were worth the most would be tucked further inside for the added protection and what few luxuries there were at such a desolate and abandoned set of buildings.

  They followed along the path of improving conditions using their night vision goggles. Dispatching the two sentries at the rear entrance of the main building didn’t take much effort. Both were smoking and talking, paying little attention to their surroundings. They dragged them inside and one of Cade’s new guys took their place, standing guard. They passed through the building slowly, checking the few rooms, all empty save one.

  Cade and Cooper knew who they were looking for, so there would be no mistaking his identity. They made it to the room that most likely would house the leader and entered swiftly and quietly. There was a man on a pallet on the floor who appeared asleep, however, when they got closer, he moved to sit up and talk to them, obviously thinking they were his soldiers. He spoke quietly in Arabic, asking if everything was completed.

  Cade replied with a staccato affirmative in the same tongue, avoiding inflection and the man seemed satisfied enough to lie back down on his pallet. When Cade continued to draw closer to him, he sat up again and asked what was wrong. Cade got a good look at him then and saw that he was, in fact, their target. He realized too late that Cade wasn’t one of his men. As he began to yell, Cade swiftly and silently sliced his blade across the target’s throat, nearly severing his head.

  Cade turned toward Cooper, saw the man at his feet, and realized someone must have come in to check on their target. Cooper held up his finger to signal quiet. Cade flanked the other side of the door, waiting for the person coming swiftly down the hallway. When the tango ran through the door, Cade caught him from behind, snapping his neck quickly then gently placing him on the floor.

  What Cade saw on the floor, next to the guy’s hand, made his blood run cold. He tapped Cooper on the shin and showed him the knife on the floor that was covered in blood. Cooper’s eyes narrowed in recognition and he nodded, but they continued on with their plan. When they were sure the hallway was clear, they both left the room in opposite directions to check that the tasks of the others were completed and everyone had gotten out safely.

  He was just turning the first corner when he came to a body in the hallway. Though he’d half expected it, he still couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Chaz, the newbie they’d left at the back entrance, was inside the building where he had no business being, dead by that tango’s knife wound to his throat.

  He hadn’t had time to get to truly know the kid yet and now he never would. The guilt threatened to swamp him. Losing one of his men, regardless of how well he knew him, was something he always had a hard time with, and this time was no different. The fact that this young man had disobeyed direct orders and placed himself in danger didn’t seem to matter in the grand scheme of things. This mission was fucked. He’d known it from the word go and he knew it was going to get worse before it got better.

  He knew he had to get his team the fuck out of dodge, so he leaned down and hauled his man up into a fireman’s carry across his shoulders. Cade held on to Chaz’s arm and leg with his left hand, so that his right hand was free to hold his sidearm. He got Cooper on coms and, speaking in Dari, quickly and quietly told him what had happened and that he’d give the go ahead to detonate the bombs once he was far enough away with Chaz. He was outside and was rounding a corner of one of the outbuildings when he heard a noise behind him and turned just in time to see a tango raise his gun.

  As much as he didn’t want to shoot anyone and wake up the rest of the camp, he didn’t have much of a choice. He raised his gun and was about to shoot when his attacker got one off first, hitting him high on the right side. He nearly dropped his man, but was able to keep hold and get a shot off at the tango, taking him down with a shot to the head, and started hoofing it out of there. He got Cooper on coms again and explained that the gunshots had been his and that they didn’t have much time before every tango in the fucking place would be falling out to attack.

  Cooper validated that everyone else had gotten out and they were at their rendezvous point. Cade heard movement behind him and sped up, turning a corner and seeing freedom ahead. He ran as fast as he could from the camp and told Cooper to blow it sky high. He thought he was far enough away to avoid getting any backlash, but true to this fucked up mission, he wasn’t quite there. He caught a bit of shrapnel on his back and legs, but kept going. Once he got to his men, Cooper came forward along with Jackson and Sawyer and relieved him of his cargo with some angry mutters and several questions about why the kid had been where he’d been.

  He admitted he had no fucking clue why the kid had gone against orders, but kept his mouth closed about his own injuries. As long as the other men traded carrying the body of their fallen soldier, he’d suffer through the five kilometer trek to the landing zone and get the fuck out of dodge. As team leader, he always protected their six, and this mission was no different, as they made their trek to the LZ. Strangely enough, they had no further troubles that night and just as his energy flagged and he began slowing his men down, drawing curious looks from them, they arrived at the LZ with only seconds to spare. They were extracted without delay and flown back to base.

  His men hadn’t found out he was injured until they boarded the helicopter, and Cooper asked him what was really going on. When he admitted he was shot and had some shrapnel wounds, his men got to working on him immediately. Only when the adrenaline ebbed did he realize he was in worse shape than he’d thought. When they arrived back to base, he was taken immediately to the clinic where he was treated and stabilized enough to travel. He was then flown to Germany for surgery and continued treatment.

  He was notified, several days after surgery, that the base commander had gone ape shit upon their team’s return and done his best to stir the pot and fuck with Cade’s career. He’d expected a dressing down for the death of one of his men. Though the base commander wasn’t his superior, death was always taken seriously on any military base. Regardless of the fact that the kid had gone against direct orders and the rest of his team had given their reports verifying that fact, it was on Cade’s watch that he died.

  The commander was a Class A douchebag, and Cade knew he’d have to deal with him sooner rather than later. However, what he hadn’t expected was to be put under investigation for his unauthorized use of the Chinook, which was not how he’d logged his mission plans and therefore was not what had been approved by base command.

  He wasn’t worried. The commander was trying to throw his weight around with a mess of paperwork for misappropriation of base assets. Cade knew the complaints would be logged but ignored by his superiors. They needed to give the appearance of playing nice with the base commander, but when it came down to it, his job was to complete the mission and that’s what he’d done. While the complaint was being dealt with, he continued to recuperate. Eventually he was read the riot act by his superiors, as was expected for the base commander’s complaint, but he was also given a pat on the back and a commendation for the mission.

  He was eventually flown stateside to his home base at Fort Carson to finish out his recovery, which came at the perfect time. He’d been wanting to get out of the military and open his own security company. When he started talking about his plans with his
senior team members, they all agreed that it was time to get out. They’d be leaving the military prior to their twenty-year retirement, but they all knew they’d much rather have more control over what missions they took on.

  He was due to re-up, but his superior and mentor, Colonel Whitney, was aware of his desire to move on. He wasn’t about to spring that decision on one of the men he respected most. Cade would wait out his medical leave and separate from the military with an honorable discharge and a large stack of commendations, which his future career depended upon. His men would continue active duty until that time.

  As much as Whitney wanted them all to stay, he’d recognized that they were leaving with specific goals in mind and would be entering the private sector providing security to civilians and consultation for large corporations. He’d highly recommended their team.

  It wasn’t long before their small security firm had been put on the map with an inordinate amount of military, personal and professional recommendations. They went from a small, fairly local operation to a much larger one with assignments across the US, utilizing only former military, Special Forces, Special Operations, and Special Intelligence men and women on staff.

  “And that brings us to today.” Cade sighed and continued, “I don’t think I missed anything big, but if there’s anything else I can think of, I’ll share it with you.”

  Braden sat, calmly caressing Cade’s arms that were now locked around him from behind. He was leaning back against Cade’s chest, and this time he had the feeling he was facing away from him for Cade’s benefit, not his own. He could feel the tension radiating through Cade’s whole body. He didn’t feel bad for wanting, no needing, to know more of Cade’s past; however, Braden felt horrible that it was at such a cost to him.

  He turned to the side so that he was now leaning across Cade’s belly, propping his head up with his hand, gazing at Cade in consternation. He used the fingertips of his casted hand and softly ran them down the side of Cade’s cheek. He felt Cade’s clenched jaw and felt a sick sort of dread in the pit of his stomach. He pulled his hand away and slowly sat up and moved back. He pulled his legs into his chest and held them there with his arms around them, his chin on his knees. He pulled away from Cade physically, but he knew Cade had pulled away from him mentally and he felt bereft at the loss.