Off the Grid

by Monica McCarty

  She had to stop thinking about that. It wasn’t helping.

  But she’d meant what she told him before she left. There weren’t going to be any more Lost Platoon stories without proof—her editor had made that clear. Which was why she was here making friends.

  The documents and satellite images from her mysterious source seemed to point to a secret mission in Russia. Given the state of tension between the two countries teetering on war, it made sense that no one would be eager for the information to get out. One of the few helpful clues in the redacted deployment orders had been Vaernes Air Station. If she could prove that Brandon had been here, that would help establish the authenticity of the document, and if he was here right before the purported missile “test” in late May, that might be enough to link SEAL Team Nine to the explosion in Russia. Vaernes was an obvious launch point for an operation in Russia.

  Assuming her new source hadn’t sent her on a wild-goose chase, as she was beginning to fear. She was still hoping Mac would be able to come back with something more on the license plates, but the car had been a pool car used by any number of people in the Department of Defense. If they kept a list on who took it out, it wasn’t electronic.

  For now this was her best lead. But so far it wasn’t paying off. Hopefully, her luck would change tonight.

  “It was your smile,” the soldier said. “Americans are so friendly and confident.” He frowned, noticing the change of her expression. “Is something wrong?”

  She shook her head, realizing she was still frowning from thinking of John. “No, sorry. I just thought I saw someone I knew.”

  He didn’t hide his disappointment. “Then you are waiting for someone?”

  She shook her head. “I’m going to take a chance that you aren’t a serial killer scouting bars for victims, but no, I’m not.”

  He grinned. “Not a serial killer; we don’t get a lot of those in Norway. My name is Nils Olsen—Corporal Nils Olsen—I’m stationed at the base.” He motioned toward his group of friends, who were watching his progress. “You can ask any of them, and they’ll tell you, I’m perfectly safe.”

  Her mouth quirked in a playful smile. “Brittany Blake. It’s nice to meet you, Nils. But maybe I should ask those women over at that table instead? A couple of them keep looking over here.”

  He blushed. If he was indeed a budding ladies’ man, as she suspected, he hadn’t perfected the smooth-operator bit. She guessed he was a couple years younger than her—maybe twenty-three or twenty-four. Give him a few years.

  Her thoughts slid to another smooth operator before she forced them back to Nils.

  Not wanting to scare him away, she changed the subject. “Are you in the air force?”

  “I’m with the Home Guard.”

  From her research on the air station, she knew what the Home Guard was but pretended as if she didn’t and gave him a questioning look.

  He explained. “It’s an Innsatsstyrke—what you would call a Rapid Reaction Force. We are trained to respond to all kinds of emergencies, from bomb threats to terrorism. We actually do an exchange with your national guard every year in Minnesota.”

  “Ah.” She nodded. “I think my brother mentioned that.” At his questioning look she explained. “He was here briefly with the marines a few months ago.”

  Brittany didn’t think the recent US marine presence at Vaernes was a coincidence. Earlier this year, Vaernes had welcomed three hundred marines from North Carolina. They were the first US troops to be officially stationed in Norway since World War II. Not surprisingly, Russia wasn’t too happy with the arrangement. The marines were on a six-month deployment and the second group had rotated in this summer. The US troop presence at Vaernes would make it easier to hide a team of SEALs moving through.

  She let the mention of her brother go and changed the subject when her food and drink arrived. She wasn’t hungry, and she was tired of bar food, so she’d ordered a salad and fries. But her attempt at healthy had been foiled by a large glob of creamy dressing.

  Oh well.

  Brittany was having a surprisingly good time talking to Nils, and it was only after the waitress had cleared the table and brought them each another beer and he’d asked her how she ended up here that she returned to the subject of her brother.

  “I was already planning a hiking trip over here with a girlfriend, so when my brother told me about the annual blues festival, I knew I had to check it out. My friend had to go back for work, but I decided to stay on for an extra week to go to the ‘Blues in Hell.’”

  Hell was the name of a small village near Vaernes, and not surprisingly, the festival took advantage of the catchy name.

  Before Nils could ask her any blues-related questions, she asked him what she’d been wanting to ask since he sat down. “I wonder if you crossed paths with him while he was here?”

  It was the same question she’d asked a handful of other soldiers stationed here the past couple nights with no luck. She was trying to be careful, but if this didn’t yield something soon, she was going to have to come up with a way to show the picture to more people without drawing attention to it or herself.

  She’d always taken the get-more-bees-with-honey approach to her investigating. In her experience, people didn’t like reporters—especially aggressive ones—and were naturally defensive around her if they thought she was trying to question them or wanted something. She got a lot more just by talking to people and being friendly.

  Flirting wasn’t usually part of the repertoire, but with young soldiers it seemed the best way to relate and not seem suspicious. When in Rome . . .

  “Maybe,” Nils said doubtfully. “What’s his name?”

  “Brand,” she said, and took out her phone. “I have a picture.”

  It was the same photo from the beach zoomed in on his face. She was going to hold it out to show it to him, but Nils took the opportunity to slide onto the bench seat next to her.

  Maybe he was more of an operator than she’d given him credit for. He was sitting close enough for their legs to touch. She could feel the muscle of his thigh pressing against hers. He was tall and lean, but not physically overwhelming like—

  Stop.

  He took the phone, gave it a brief glance, and then looked back with a small frown. “He looks familiar. When was he here?”

  Brittany tried to control her excitement, but her heart was beating so hard she thought he might hear it. “End of May. He didn’t stay very long. But after his description of the area, I knew I had to add it to my itinerary.”

  He handed the phone back to her, and the way he was looking at her made her realize he was more savvy than his age suggested. “Yeah, I remember him. He and his friends were only here about a week. They kept to themselves and didn’t mingle—even with their own guys. I assumed they were some kind of Special Forces.”

  Brittany acted embarrassed. “I’m not supposed to talk about that.” She bit her lip in an effort not to burst out with a bunch of questions. But with her first confirmation, it wasn’t easy. “I’m impressed that you remember him. Did you talk to him or any of his friends?”

  He shook his head. “Not me. As I said, they weren’t interested in meeting the locals, but you do this long enough and you begin to pick out guys like that. Intense, all-business, focused.” He shrugged. “My friend Johan drove them to one of our training facilities. He said they barely spoke two words and their uniforms didn’t have any kind of military branch or unit on them. Just some kind of patch.”

  “Johan?” Brittany hoped she didn’t sound too eager, but every bone in her body was screaming “Yes!” If she could get a description of the patch, it could be proof that Team Nine had been here—especially if it matched the new tattoo she’d noticed on John of the trident and net, which she suspected was some kind of unit or platoon badge. “Is he one of your friends over there?”

 
She motioned to the group of guys who were still standing by the bar. They’d lost interest in Nils’s progress and had concentrated on their own, mingling with some of the women Brittany had noticed earlier.

  Nils shook his head. “No. He had a late shift tonight and was just going to hang out at the barrack bar at the garrison tonight.” He leaned in a little closer, and his eyes fell to her mouth. Uh-oh, he wasn’t going to try to kiss her, was he? He was definitely smoother than she’d thought. “I don’t suppose you have any interest in checking it out? It’s quieter there.”

  Definitely smoother than she thought. His hand was stroking the top of her arm and the strands of dark hair that she’d left loose around her shoulders. Her skin was buzzing, but it wasn’t with awareness.

  It almost felt like someone was watching her. She’d had that feeling a few times since arriving, but every time she looked, it wasn’t anything. It was just John making her paranoid. “You don’t know what kind of hornet’s nest you are stirring up. . . .”

  Yes, she did. She’d been inside a government cover-up before, but so far the only hornet here was one with eight hands. She’d better watch out or this guy was going to be all over her.

  But she couldn’t let the chance go to meet someone else who might recognize or have spoken to her brother.

  She debated for a minute. “Okay, but just to go to the bar, right?”

  “Right.”

  His brilliant smile made those caution signs go way up. “Did you drive?” she asked. He nodded. “Good. I’ll follow you in my rental.”

  She felt a lot more relaxed and less claustrophobic when he slid out of the seat next to her and stood. She also felt less like she was under a microscope, but she looked around all the same. No one was paying attention to them.

  “Where did you park?” he asked.

  “In the back.” The lot had been packed by the time she arrived. “I’ll drive around and meet you by the entrance.”

  He told her the model of the car, and they walked out the front door. She pretended not to notice the knowing smirks on a few of his friends’ faces.

  When they got outside, she could see that the skies had darkened with rain. She pulled out her travel umbrella and told him she would see him in a few minutes.

  She hurried around the building, trying not to slip in her heeled sandals. Her feet were soaked already. Not the wisest choice of footwear tonight, given the weather, but she’d been going for sexy and had to dress the part. Besides, she was short and needed all the help she could get.

  She was about half the distance to her car when the hairs went up on the back of her neck and she got that feeling again. She looked around, thinking it might be Nils, but the parking lot was deserted.

  Cursing John Donovan for the umpteenth time, she dug around in her bag for her keys and pepper spray. Ignoring the water sloshing through her toes, she hustled the remaining distance to her car.

  Although pepper spray was illegal for private citizens in most of Scandinavia, she’d been able to track some down, thanks to Google after her John-Donovan-inspired paranoia made her think someone was following her the other night. Apparently some sporting goods stores sold it under the table.

  Lucky for her, she had it in her hand when someone grabbed her from behind.

  Nine

  Brittany didn’t have time to scream. She felt a hand on her upper arm and raised the pepper spray at the same time as someone—a man—spun her around.

  She got off only one short shot before the spray was knocked out of her hand with a muffled word in a language that she didn’t need to understand to know it was a curse. Her umbrella was blocking her view of his face, but he was big—about a foot taller than she—and wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt that made him look bulkier than the hardness of the arms grabbing her suggested.

  She tried to use the umbrella as a weapon, but it was in her left hand, and her awkward attempt was easily deflected. Like the pepper spray, he knocked it out of her hand with a blow that made her cry out.

  She caught a flash of a shadowed profile as he muffled her cry with his hand and drew her in hard against him. He wrapped his arm around her neck so tightly it was cutting off her breath.

  Terror was instantaneous and unlike anything she’d ever experienced. It was a primitive reaction that permeated every bone, every fiber, every nerve ending of her being.

  She struggled, clawing with her fingertips at the thick, steely arm crushing her throat. But it was immovable. He was strong—terrifyingly strong.

  She was so scared it took her a few minutes to realize he was trying to pull the purse that she had instinctively clutched to her side. She released it at the same moment as she stomped down hard on his foot with the point of her heel.

  The impractical sandals of a few moments ago were now her salvation. He made a sharp sound of pain and loosened the arm around her neck enough to let in some air. She sucked in a few greedy gasps as she tried to twist away.

  But he recovered from the heel stomp too quickly and reached for her—or her purse, which was hanging loose on her arm—again.

  Oh God, all she’d succeeded in doing was angering him. She could practically feel the menace wrapping around her and feared that this time the arm around her throat wouldn’t stop squeezing.

  But instead of tightening around her neck, his arm flexed and she was shoved forward hard against her car. Unable to stop the momentum, she stumbled to her knees and cried out—more from the shock of the force than from pain.

  Being on the ground terrified her. Nothing good was going to happen with her like this. The thought of rape permeated the haze, causing her to rally. To fight. She had to get up.

  But rape wasn’t why he’d pushed her down. She heard the sound of a struggle and realized that someone else was there. She glanced over her left shoulder as she got to her feet, hunched over.

  A man in a hooded Gore-Tex jacket appeared to have just struck the man in the sweatshirt who’d attacked her. Her thought that Nils might have heard and come to her rescue was discarded at the sight of the blue Helly Hansen–style jacket. Nils had been wearing a similar lightweight rain jacket, but his had been a dusky military green.

  Her attacker stumbled but shook off the blow and pulled something out of the sweatshirt pocket. She glanced at his face again, trying to make out the features, but the hood of his sweatshirt was pulled down too far. All she could see was a silhouetted profile. Then she was distracted by the glint of metal coming from his pocket.

  “Down.” She heard the shouted warning and reacted to the voice of her rescuer even as she recognized what the metal was.

  She dove forward, hitting the ground flat as a muffled shot was fired. The bullet whizzed right above her head, and she screamed.

  She didn’t know how long her face was pressed to the wet gravel. She didn’t dare move in case he tried to shoot her again. Time seemed to have stopped. She heard scuffling—fighting—the unmistakable crack of a bone, a sharp grunt, and then the clatter of something metal hitting the ground.

  A few long heartbeats later someone was at her side and she was being lifted off the ground and turned around into a reclining position.

  Fortunately, it was John, whose voice she’d recognized, and not the man who’d attacked her.

  He was handling her so gently. Almost tenderly. She might have been a fragile piece of china from the way he was holding her.

  “Oh God, are you hit?”

  He had her by the shoulders, and she was able to look up at him to shake her head. There was some kind of emotion in his gaze that made her throat squeeze, cutting off her ability to talk.

  “Thank God,” he said hoarsely, bringing her in tight against his chest.

  She felt something pounding against her cheek, and it took her a moment to realize it was his heart.

  He’d been scared for her. Scared eno
ugh to lose his perpetual cool.

  She didn’t have time to ponder that as the sound of a motorcycle broke the spell. She looked over John’s shoulder long enough to see the man in the hooded sweatshirt speeding away. She also saw the gun on the ground against the wheel of the car, where John must have kicked it after breaking her attacker’s arm to release it—that was the crunch she’d heard.

  John relaxed his embrace and then held her away from him again to meet her gaze. “You’re sure you’re okay? He got off that shot before I could reach him.” She thought he might have shuddered. “When you cried out, I thought he hit you.”

  She shook her head again, but this time found her voice. “It just startled me.”

  He nodded and helped her to her feet. She straightened her clothes and brushed the pebbles off her scraped knees and palms, trying not to wince, suspecting those scrapes were going to hurt later.

  She should have guessed from the way he was watching her and the increasing darkness that was coming over his expression that the storm—the real storm—was about to break. Seeing her umbrella and purse on the ground, she put off the inevitable for a moment and bent down to pick them up.

  But the rain plastering her clothes and her hair to her body suddenly seemed unimportant. The silence was ominous.

  Why was she feeling defensive? She hadn’t done anything wrong. “Not that I’m not grateful for your timely arrival, John. But what are you doing here?”

  His eyes narrowed. The concern of a few moments ago was evaporating quickly. “I should be asking you the same thing. You were supposed to go home and forget all about this.” He took a step toward her, which, if she didn’t know him better, she might have considered threatening. “It could be dangerous, remember? Like you could get yourself fucking killed?”

  The last two words were practically shouted, and her eyes widened both at his tone and the rage on his face. No, not concerned anymore. That was for sure. Now he was in 100 percent pissed-off-deadly-operator mode.

  She had always wondered how someone so laid-back and good-humored could have ended up becoming a SEAL in one of the most elite Special Forces in the world, but suddenly it had become a lot clearer.