Tactical Deception: Silent Warrior, Book 2

by J. L. Saint

  “I do,” she said again, bringing her arm around him and urging him closer.

  “You do what?”

  “Ache every moment to touch you. I am consumed with dreams of you. And I live every moment to love you. I was never afraid of you. I was always afraid of myself with you.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Neil found me near death. He saved me. He brought me here. He loved me and I loved him. I didn’t know there was anything more. Then one day you walked into my home. I looked into your eyes and something inside me burst into life. I nearly fainted from the force of the desire I felt. I rushed to my room, took to my bed and prayed for Allah to forgive me. I could fight my thoughts of you during the day, but I couldn’t stop my dreams of you at night. I never would have been unfaithful to Neil but, Roger, I have wanted you, craved you, desired you and dreamed of you from the moment I met you.”

  He froze in shock as he thought back. He remembered going to Neil’s house and meeting Mari for the first time, but all he remembered was downcast eyes and swallowing garments more suited for cloaking the dead rather than the living. He drew a deep breath as he gazed into her eyes. This was for real. He was humbled and he shook with emotion, speechless.

  Mari blinked at Roger. Her whole heart and guilt were splayed open for him to see and he just stared at her. His blue eyes pierced right to her soul, but why didn’t he say something? Had she said too much? Did he think her awful? “Roger?”

  He leaned forward and gently kissed her. “I love you,” he said quietly then thrust inside her, making coherent thought impossible.

  She gasped with pleasure and wrapped her legs around him.

  He thrust deeper and deeper as if reaching for her soul.

  She arched to him, matching him thrust for thrust and demanding more and more. He kept his gaze locked with hers, claiming her, connecting with her completely, body and soul as he drove her passion higher and higher. Everything faded away. The world. The pain. The strife. The problems. Nothing mattered more in this moment than the pleasure of joining herself to him.

  The exquisite desperation taking over her soul was unlike anything she’d ever known, ever experienced. She not only wanted to be as close to him as she could possibly be, she needed to be with a hunger that frightened her in its intensity. She gave him all.

  “I love you,” she whispered and opened herself to him, absorbing his raw need. She didn’t close her eyes as her breath quickened and her vision dimmed, but kept her gaze locked with his as ecstasy shuddered along her every nerve until stars burst inside her head and she saw nothing at all. At some point she knew he followed her into heaven then eased them both to her unhurt side. He kissed her and wrapped her tightly in his arms.

  She should have said something, done something, but all she was capable of was pressing herself close to his solid warmth.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Outskirts of the White Aryan Vipers (WAV) Militia Training Camp

  Harnett County, North Carolina

  2000 hours

  Jack limped across the road, the pall of defeat heavy in his gut. Armageddon had come and still smoldered. The Viper camp lay empty except for investigators. The bomb squad had removed the stored C4 and weapons. All Vipers had been arrested, hospitalized or sent to the morgue, except for two. Dugar and an undercover agent named Slayer, who’d managed to take control of the group when their previous leader had been killed.

  They now knew for sure that Roger and Mari weren’t in the camp and hadn’t been taken by the militants or Dugar. Jack was impressed with the operation, but Dugar had been the holdup on wrapping everything into a neat bow for months now and unfortunately still was.

  Jack glanced at Beck. “Why did you turn back?”

  “What was I supposed to do when I turn around and see you running into hell as the world explodes?”

  “What else but follow me?” Jack sighed, knowing he’d probably do the same.

  “I figured I could track Dugar later. He stopped shooting once the bombs went off.”

  Beck wouldn’t be tracking Dugar for a few days at least. The blast at Mac’s car had thrown Beck, who had been ten feet behind Jack, into a tree and snapped his tibia. Another team was on Dugar’s trail, an army of helicopters were scouring the area, and roadblocks every ten feet, but Jack had a bad feeling about the whole situation.

  Dugar didn’t get the satisfaction he’d been after. Other than the two dead EMTs—investigators had found the body of a second EMT not far from the tattooed man he and Beck had discovered by the motorcycle Dugar had ditched—there were only minor injuries across the board from the explosions. The few that had been shot were in serious condition but recovery was expected.

  The deranged militant didn’t have any of his prized stash from the cave. The authorities had confiscated it all, but Jack knew in his gut that Dugar still had enough C4 on him to cause a major tragedy.

  There wasn’t anything left for him and Beck to do here. Once it had been determined that the commander wasn’t here, Sergeant Vance returned to Fort Bragg’s CID office. He took Surf with him. Mac was in the hospital with a nasty gash to his skull, but he was going to be fine.

  “You ready to go to the hospital?” Beck had declined the EMT’s help or use of an ambulance several times.

  He grunted. “Guess so. You can drop me off and I’ll likely take a cab home.”

  “What? No man that follows me into hell takes a cab home from the hospital.”

  “With Lauren waiting, I thought you had better things to do than to sit for hours in the ER.”

  “I do.” Mainly the ring in his pocket that was burning a hole in his soul.

  “So?”

  “So I’ll drop you off and you call me to pick you up.”

  “Deal.”

  An hour and a half later, Jack parked in front of his apartment on post at Fort Bragg. He didn’t know how he was going to say it, but he wasn’t going to wait another minute. He slammed out of his car and rounded the hood, practicing in his mind four simple words that had held men in agony and ecstasy throughout time.

  He looked up and there she was, standing in the yard like a dream, moonlight kissing her golden hair and pale face. All of the worry she’d spent hours over was written on her face. Had it been too much for her? He’d come just exactly as he was and hadn’t tried to sugarcoat that he’d been to hell and back today. He didn’t want to lose her, but he wasn’t going to lie either. She was the best slice of heaven a man could have on earth. He limped to her and fell to his knees.

  She gasped, clasping his shoulders. “Are you all right?”

  He dug the ring out of his pocket and opened the box. “Will you marry me, Lauren? Be with me no matter what life dishes out?”

  Lauren couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She didn’t know where Jack had been. She didn’t know what danger he’d been in. From the look of him, it was a miracle he was there. She’d seen him in action before. She’d seen him kill and almost be killed, but she’d never seen him this beat up. She didn’t have to ask to know that he’d gone more than twelve rounds with death since he’d walked out the door. Death hadn’t won, but Jack didn’t look as if he had either.

  He’d come home though. But what about the next time?

  She drew a deep breath, met his hungry gaze and knew that it didn’t matter. Him being alive and safe would always matter, but her loving him or not loving him because of it wasn’t a consideration. She’d fallen in love with a hero. He was a hero when he showed up on her doorstep and saved her and her sons and he was a hero when he walked out the door earlier today to do what he had to do. He’d be one to his dying breath and she’d love him to hers.

  “Yes.”

  Jack put the ring on her finger then buried his face against her stomach and sighed. She went down on her knees to hold him as close as she could for as long as she could. This moment. The haven of his arms and the solace of his soul tangled up with hers was all that mattered.
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  Chapter Forty

  River of Blood Camp

  Union County, Georgia

  Rico walked through the terrorist camp again, hoping against hope to find something, anything to indicate Roger was still alive. Men searched the woods for clues. It had yet to be determined exactly what went down here.

  The black van they’d been following with the ’copter had disappeared beneath the cover of trees and never came out the other side. By the time a patrol car arrived, the van was empty. Roger’s and Mari’s prints had been found on the floor.

  Dick de Jerk had played out his scenario at Aleem’s house and at the Dairy Queen without success. Aleem’s Honda, front damage and all, was parked at the DQ and all of his employees thought he was back in his office, but there was no Aleem. He’d cleaned out his bank accounts earlier that day and he and his family had disappeared. Agents were sifting through Aleem’s house for clues. The only thing that had surfaced was that Aleem had a brother who drove a hearse in Gainesville. Several GBI agents were working that angle.

  So all they had left was the carnage at the terrorist camp in the national forest. Spotlights had turned the night to day. An entire group of armed men lay on the ground, ripped apart by bullets as if they’d stood there and let someone massacre them. There were bodies scattered about. One woman in traditional dress had been shot in the head, execution style. The gun in her hand hadn’t done her any good either.

  Generators had provided electricity for a TV and a few lights, but there were multiple empty plugs suggesting that other devices such as computers and cell phones had been used at one time and cleaned out.

  Fruitless frustration clawed at him. Roger had been here. Was he now dead? Were they too late? This had also been their one chance at stopping the snipers terrorizing the country, but they didn’t have a single shred of information to make that happen. No forgotten cell phones. No papers. No lists. Nothing to go on. If nothing turned up at Aleem’s house, business or with his brother they were SOL.

  Aleem didn’t even have a cell phone registered in his name, which Rico knew wasn’t true. The man had to have had one.

  A commotion and the scream of a woman jerked Rico from his thoughts. He ran across the camp. SA Gibson pulled a woman out of a large wood box stored underneath one of the cabins.

  “Let her go. Do not touch her,” a man yelled in a variation of Arabic, fighting Dekker and another agent who held him back. The man’s robe had been soaked through with blood from the waist down and he wasn’t standing with any stability. He was injured. Both were in traditional dress.

  “They will not harm her,” Rico told the man in Arabic.

  “She is unmarried and must remain pure,” the man said.

  Rico heard the woman gasp. He explained to SA Gibson the man’s concern and the traditional Muslim code.

  The agent released the woman’s arm and narrowed his gaze at Rico. “You’re fluent in Arabic? You’re full of surprises.”

  “Most of the men on the teams are,” Dekker said. “Can’t send a man into a hot zone where he can’t hear what’s going down around him.”

  Gibson nodded. The woman turned around. “It is all right, Fahran. Please do not anger them.”

  “Mari!” Rico ran forward staring at Mari. She looked at him cautiously.

  “You are mistaken. I am Maisa.”

  Rico shook his head grappling for understanding. He was as sure as he could possibly be that Neil’s wife was standing in front of him.

  “Tell him,” the man said. “It may save you.”

  “I am Mari’s twin sister. Fahran is our brother.”

  Rico couldn’t stop himself from moving closer and looking her over closely. It was Mari to a T, except for the bitter hopelessness in the woman’s gaze. “Where are Mari and Roger? What happened to them?”

  “Fahran and my mother helped Mari and her husband escape into the forest hours ago. Do you have my mother? Can I see her?”

  Mari’s husband? Roger? Her mother was likely the woman in the field. Executed for freeing the prisoners? “Can you describe Mari’s husband?”

  “He is the cousin to President Anderson,” Fahran said. “Lt. Col. Weston. Tall, dark hair, blue eyes, a younger version of the President himself and strong enough to spit the devil in the eye.”

  The woman gasped in surprise. “How do you know this?”

  “I saw it on the news just after we arrived here.” The man shifted his gaze from the woman to Rico. “I have information. A lot of information. I will give this in exchange for two things. Her freedom and the safety and freedom of my wife and son. They are with Mullah Mohammed’s Omar’s guards in Quetta. I am sure this will be of great importance to your government.”

  Rico raised his brow. This was top Taliban info they’d been searching years to get. He explained to SA Gibson. “I don’t have the authority to—”

  Dekker didn’t skip a beat. “Tell him it’s a deal, Corporal Santana. I will make it happen. I’m calling the President now to tell him about Weston and to get these two ‘witnesses’ as far from that SOO’s pompous ass as possible.”

  “You’ve got yourself a deal,” Rico told the man. “But why? Why are you so ready to turn against your brothers?”

  “Brothers? My family is hostage. What brother threatens what you love to force you to fight his fight? We are told to sacrifice all for Allah and bring retribution and destruction to the enemy who invaded our land, an eye for an eye. But the result is an endless cycle of death and suffering.” Anger and bitterness and a sense of hopelessness rang deep in the man’s voice and something about it struck a chord inside Rico. Somehow he could relate. He didn’t bother to translate now, but given General Dekker’s intense look, Rico would have to explain later.

  “Say that again?” Gibson listened to something on his ear comm. “They’ve found five dead to the east of here and a woman’s gown and headscarf in the woods. They’re following the trail.”

  Rico shook his head. “Tell them to go any direction but that one. Roger would never leave a trail.”

  “Tell them to go west, right past the camp,” Dekker added.

  Gibson raised a brow, but passed on the information.

  Rico wasn’t sure what would be worked out, but he knew something would be done fast, in plenty of time to stop another sniper attack. Roger and Mari would be found. The last bit of information told Rico the commander was well in control.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Union County, Georgia

  September 13

  0600 hours

  Roger was out of control.

  After making love last night, he and Mari had fallen asleep for a few hours before waking up. He’d done nothing more than his porch alarm to secure their safety before doing that and was damn lucky nothing had happened during his lapse.

  He’d immediately set things to rights in the middle of the night by placing more makeshift warning devices around the perimeter of the cabin. When he returned, he found Mari up and about. Dressed in a towel, she’d washed their clothes in the sink and had them drying over chairs. She’d bandaged her own shoulder, which he should have done instead of humping their brains out. And she’d heated soup in a pan set over the top of the gas lamp. Something he should have taken care of as well. They sat at the table to eat and he lost his mind.

  They’d already made exquisite love. The hungry edge of his desire should have eased. Instead it had sharpened to a hard-dick-centered point. She had a way of sliding her tongue beneath the spoon when she ate. It wasn’t just an occasional glimpse of pink, but a constant barrage of sensual torment.

  He watched her eat every bite and then she picked up the bowl and drank the dregs, licking the rim before she set it down and sighed. “That was great.”

  “Not yet,” he said. “I’m still very hungry.”

  She looked up at him. “I’ll fix more.”

  “No. I will.” He stood, lifted her from the chair and laid her on the table like a feast, everything was sp
layed out before him once he flicked open her towel. He devoured her like a starved man, thinking about her tongue doing to him everything he did to her. Her breasts. Her sex. Her body, every place he could glide or slide his tongue. He made it last as long as he could stand it. He pumped into her wet sex until he thought he was about to come then he pulled out and licked her from stem to stern, kissing her, sucking her breasts, sucking her clit until she cried out. Then he slid back inside her heat. He did it again and again until he lost control with her heels on his shoulders, his hands on her hips, her bottom against his balls and his dick as deep as he could get.

  She came a number of times, and by the time he orgasmed, he had banged the table across the cabin floor all the way up against the wall.

  It had been wild and furious and fucking fantastic.

  They’d crawled back in bed and slept again. Now it was morning. His internal clock knew it was dawn. He knew they had to reach help, knew that danger was outside of that door. Also knew that he didn’t dare leave her here alone while he went for help. So he needed to be up and planning for the most important mission of his life and instead he was lying in bed, spooning Mari with a King Kong-sized morning erection that had his balls aching for release.

  All he had to do to regain control of his world was to get up and start moving and thinking on how he was going to get them both to safety. Yet, he didn’t move. Well, he did a little. He slid his thumb over the nipple of the breast he had cupped in his palm. She sleepily arched her back, sliding her sweet bottom flush against his throbbing dick. God help him but he wasn’t going to do anything but this.

  He didn’t know what was wrong with him. Maybe it was because they’d been seconds from death yesterday, but he was driven to reaffirm life the best way he knew how. Sliding in from behind, he found her clit with a wet finger and thought he’d take her on a quickie to heaven.

  She moaned and sighed and arched and thrust back against him so forcefully in her uninhibited response that he moved to his knees and anchored his hands to her hips to leverage deeper into her.