“We’ve got company.” Marshal Dahl, watching the front of the cabin from one of the windows, turned partway to confirm his announcement with a nod of his head.
His statement, delivered with no apparent sense of urgency, took a few beats to sink in. When it did, MacGyver surged to his feet and hurried toward the window. This was exactly what he’d been hoping to avoid—making a stand here, out-gunned and out-maneuvered. Hell, all Palazzi had to do was set the cabin on fire, cover the exits and pick off Kellie’s protection detail one by one.
MacGyver peered around the wall into the front yard. What the hell?
Travis joined him, a perplexed grin twisting his mouth. “Well, well. The prodigal returns.”
Blake Sorenson approached the cabin, waving a white T-shirt on a broken tree branch over his head.
“Who is it?” Kellie still stood beside Charlie at the table.
MacGyver pushed away from the wall. “It’s Blake, under a white flag. Stay inside until I find out what he wants.” He turned to Travis. “Watch my back, Bro.”
“I’m gonna be right beside you, man. The marshal and Kellie can cover us.”
MacGyver didn’t argue. It wouldn’t change Travis’s mind. Besides, the expression on Blake’s face when he got a look at Travis’s bloody clothes and bandaged arm would be telling. He and Travis strode toward the door, and Kellie took his place at the window.
She touched his arm as they passed. “Be careful.”
He grinned, hoping to ease the worry crinkling her forehead. “Always am, Champ.”
MacGyver and Travis pushed through the door together and spread out in front of the porch, guns drawn. “That’s close enough, Sorenson,” MacGyver growled.
Blake stopped and lowered the T-shirt. He briefly inspected MacGyver, then moved on to Travis, where he lingered a bit longer. MacGyver couldn’t read his old friend, but he’d never seen Blake so stoic before. Laughing, cutting up or razzing someone—that was the Blake he knew. What was his game?
He dropped the branch, raised his hands and locked them behind his head. “I’m not armed, MacGyver. Search me so we can talk inside.”
MacGyver stayed where he was while Travis stepped forward. He shoved his gun in his belt and patted Blake down. “He’s clean.”
MacGyver lowered his weapon. “Give me one reason why I should let you in and listen to anything you have to say.”
A fleeting smile passed over Blake’s features as he lowered his hands. “I come bearing gifts. The first one is under that stand of saplings across the road.”
“Yeah? Did you deliver a bomb for your buddy, Palazzi?” MacGyver scowled.
“I’m disappointed.” Blake scraped a hand down his face and had the good sense to look remorseful. “After all we’ve been through together, I thought you’d at least give me a chance to explain.”
“So…explain. What did Palazzi offer you that trumped our friendship?” MacGyver sneered on the final word.
“Palazzi doesn’t have anything I want. Funny thing happened on the way to the airport though. I ran into him and his men on the road. And, when I say ran into him, I mean I had to talk fast to keep from becoming a casualty in your little war. Those men who peppered our tail feathers at Perkins Field must have made some inquiries. Palazzi knows more about me than my own mother, including you saving my worthless hide after my chopper went down. Convincing him you and I had a falling out over the girl was easy. Earning his trust was tougher. I had to go along with last night’s ambush.” Blake shifted his focus to Travis. “Glad to see no one was seriously hurt.”
A cold smile crossed Travis’s face. “Now you’re here to assure us you’re really on our side? You expect us to buy that?”
Blake shrugged, and his attention swept back to MacGyver. “Doesn’t matter to me if you believe I’m on your side or not. Just tell me one thing. You’ve known me a long time, MacGyver. Do you think I’m the kind of man who’d side with a murdering, raping prick like Palazzi?”
MacGyver searched Blake’s facial expression and body language for any kind of tell that would give him away as a liar. He found none. Before this, MacGyver would have defended Blake’s loyalty, compassion and high moral values without question. If Kellie’s life wasn’t on the line. If Blake didn’t harbor a deep, dark secret that had made her uncomfortable in her own skin.
MacGyver shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t have thought that, until I saw you treating Kellie like she was the enemy. I’ve got one more question before I can answer yours.”
Blake grinned. “I figured you’d ask, though I’m a little surprised she hasn’t already told you.” He looked over his shoulder at the road that disappeared into the trees. “I’m going to be missed before long. They don’t trust me completely yet. What do you say we collect my surprise first? I thought you might be able to use an automatic Kalashnikov or two.”
“You’re shittin’ me! AK-47s? Ammo?” Travis strode with Blake across the road toward the spindly group of fir trees as though they were suddenly best buds.
MacGyver stayed where he was in front of the cabin, unfamiliar emotions swirling in his gut. Wanting to believe his friend had merely made the best of a bad situation. Needing to protect Kellie with his life, if necessary. If he turned, he’d see her watching from the window. Did she think he’d sold her out?
Travis’s and Blake’s footsteps crunched on the gravel as they returned across the road. Travis gripped an AK-47 in each hand, apparently oblivious to any pain from his wounded arm, and Blake carried an ammo box. Travis’s expression said he’d just found a new toy. “They’re full auto, Bro. We could hold off a fucking battalion with these babies.” He walked by MacGyver and into the house.
Blake stopped in front of him. “Can we go inside now? Makes me a little nervous standing out here in the open.”
Blake’s allegiance was still a question, but providing weapons like the ones Travis carried just increased their chances ten-fold. MacGyver swept a hand toward the porch and the door beyond, scrutinizing Blake as he followed Travis inside. He glanced toward the window, but Kellie wasn’t visible.
Stepping inside a few paces behind them, he closed the door, aware of the distrust not quite hidden by the silence in the room. Travis laid the weapons on the table, and Blake set the ammo box on the floor nearby. Jeremy was still stationed as look-out, and MacGyver tipped his head toward the window at the marshal’s questioning stare. They weren’t out of trouble yet.
“Where’s Kellie?” MacGyver faced her stepdad, who leaned against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed.
Charlie frowned. “She went to her room. Said she didn’t need to hear anymore. Think I’ll do the same.” He pushed away from the counter but stopped after a few steps. “You know, I woke that girl up more times than I could count, from nightmares she brought back from Iraq. It’s a damn shame the worst of them weren’t caused by the enemy.” He gave Blake a withering glare before withdrawing to his bedroom.
“Brrr! It’s cold in here!” Blake yanked a chair out and sat. “Worst part is I can’t blame him for being pissed off. Got any coffee?”
MacGyver poured the dregs from the carafe into a cup and set it in front of him. Charlie was a good man, and something told MacGyver he wasn’t going to like what Blake was about to say. He sat opposite him, leaning back, his long legs spread out in front and ankles crossed. He’d hear the man out. He owed him that much.
Travis had made himself scarce. MacGyver could just barely hear him talking with Jeremy. Obviously, he was trying not to crowd Blake, pretending not to listen, though MacGyver would bet he was. His distance meant the decision, whether to trust Blake or not, would be MacGyver’s.
“I’m listening.” MacGyver couldn’t disguise the tension in his voice.
“I’ll get to that, but first, I have information you need. You’ve been wondering how Palazzi found her? He bribed a gu
y at Perkins Field for my flight info. All he had to do was beat us here on his private jet and grab her when we landed.” A sly grin broke over Blake’s features. “I didn’t go into detail about what a difficult task that might have been, but that wasn’t good enough for him anyway. He needed leverage and a way to punish her for all the trouble she’d caused. He wanted Charlie too, and since he’d thought far enough ahead to plant a tracking device on Kellie, he followed her straight to the cabin.”
“Where’s the tracker?” MacGyver leaned forward. He’d gotten rid of her phone and hadn’t questioned anything else. Not that she had a hell of a lot with her when he found her—just a small clutch. It must be hidden in the fabric.
“He gave her a wedding gift—some jewelry. Said it cost him a fortune, and it was worth every penny.”
Shit! The diamond necklace and earrings! MacGyver had forgotten she had them after he’d dropped them in her clutch. He shot to his feet with a groan.
“Hold on. The damage is done. If you’re satisfied I’m telling the truth when we’re done here, you can destroy it, or I’ll take it with me and drop it in the lake. I assume you know you can’t stay here. They’re only waiting for dark to make their move. You’re out-numbered, and, until just a minute ago, out-gunned.”
MacGyver didn’t need Blake to tell him they were seriously fucked if they stayed here. The maps, still partially covering the table, had probably tipped him off to the fact they were leaving, but MacGyver still didn’t trust him enough to give away their plan.
He took his seat again, trying hard to control his anger. “Tell me something I don’t know, Blake.”
The two of them stared at each other for several seconds, until Blake dropped his head and scraped his hands over the past few days’ worth of whiskers on his face. “You remember my kid brother. Right?”
MacGyver nodded. “Christian.” The kid had joined the Army on his eighteenth birthday, though Blake had tried like hell to convince him the Navy was the way to go. He’d done all right, though, and Blake had been damn proud of him. MacGyver had met Christian at the hospital after Blake’s chopper went down four years ago.
Where was Blake going with this?
His friend looked him in the eyes, and there was something so devastating in his gaze that MacGyver instinctively braced himself. “Did you know he’s paralyzed?”
MacGyver’s stomach lurched. “Aw, hell. What happened?”
“A young Marine corporal by the name of Kellie Bowman, aka Kellie Greyson, shot him.”
“Fuck!” Suddenly, the animosity between Blake and Kellie made sense.
“Christian lost a good friend to a suicide bomber the night before. He was drinking and getting high—a bad mix. His buddies had talked him into going back to the barracks to sleep it off, but as they were leaving the gate, Christian saw a girl—an Iraqi citizen, much like the one who’d blown herself and his friend to kingdom come. He was trying to scare her, making lewd comments and gestures, but she was apparently too young and naïve to be afraid, so it escalated. My brother assaulted her and could easily have hurt her in his blind rage if Corporal Bowman hadn’t come to her aid. She told him to get down on the ground, and he freaked out—went fucking nuts. He made a grab for her handgun. They wrestled for it, and she pulled the trigger.”
His voice filled with ragged sorrow, Blake paused. “I was still recuperating mentally from my own wounds when I got the news. I met him in Maryland at the hospital. He was a mess, strung out, going through withdrawal and facing criminal charges. He’d just lost everything. His career, his self-respect and everything from the waist down. I couldn’t get over the fact he’d been shot by one of ours.” Blake wrapped both hands around his coffee cup and tipped it on edge, staring at the dark liquid inside.
“I had friends in Baghdad, and I contacted them. Seems several of the Marines in the corporal’s division weren’t too happy with the situation. Sacrificing a good soldier to save a haji had made Kellie unpopular. Some even called for an investigation and court martial. So…I threw the weight of my former commission into the fight to see her locked up for what she’d done to my brother.”
MacGyver frowned at Blake’s use of the derogatory term for Muslims made prevalent by the military. It was true the enemy in Iraq were extremists and terrorists who came in all sizes, shapes and ages, but MacGyver had never been okay with hate for an entire race or religion.
Blake set his cup down and leaned forward on his elbows. “I know what you’re going to say—the same speech I’ve given myself a hundred times. Christian fucked himself. But if you could have seen my kid brother, struggling to find a reason to go on living. If you’d gone through it with him like I did, maybe you wouldn’t be so quick to judge.” Blake’s eyes held a plea for understanding.
Memories of MacGyver’s friend and fellow SEAL, Luke Harding, rushed to the forefront of his mind. Luke had been held hostage by militant jihadists that spun off Al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden was killed. Against all odds, Luke had survived, was rescued and recovered from devastating wounds, both physical and mental. Nothing about his struggle had been easy. MacGyver understood better than most.
Blake gave a derisive laugh. “Long story short, Kellie was cleared of any wrongdoing. She and her commanding officer managed to get the charges against Christian dismissed, and a dishonorable discharge was a gift, under the circumstances. Not that he hasn’t been punished for his actions. He’ll never walk again. He’s accepted his situation. I’d almost come to terms with it too, until Corporal Bowman jumped into my airplane, and I went a little crazy. Hatred is a bitch.” Blake leaned back and issued a deep sigh. “So, there’s your story. Google it, if you don’t believe me.”
MacGyver raked his fingers through his hair. Blake’s pain and anguish were real. He couldn’t have been fully recovered from the chopper crash that shattered his leg when Christian came home. Modern medicine had done amazing things to save Blake’s leg, but it was a long road to recovery. MacGyver had watched the wounded in the hospital at Bethesda while Luke was in rehab. He saw their anger—understood their frustration. Whether their wounds were life-threatening, left them maimed or took a part of their body in exchange for leaving them alive, each of them had to decide how to handle their pain and loss—their new place in the world. The shitty reality was not all of them would make it.
MacGyver rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, where his muscles were tight from inactivity. He cleared the lump from his throat as he sat forward and leaned one elbow on the table. His friend had told him the truth, and part of MacGyver identified. “I get it. If it’d been one of my sisters, I can’t truthfully say I would have reacted any different than you. Blood is blood, no matter what, and protecting those we care about is automatic.”
A small measure of relief flickered in Blake’s eyes but, a heartbeat later, his attention dropped to his coffee cup. The silence seemed to vibrate. MacGyver didn’t need to look behind him to know Travis and Jeremy had been affected by Blake’s story as well.
MacGyver shook his head. “Turns out our first instincts aren’t always right. You know Kellie had to stop the attack, Blake. It was the right thing to do, and it was her job. Look at me and tell me you wouldn’t have done the same. Jesus, Blake! What if that sixteen-year-old girl had been your sister? You’d have a different perspective then. We both would. I know you don’t want to hear this, but Christian made his own choices, and it’s damn near impossible to protect someone from themselves.”
Blake sighed. “Spoken like a damned philosopher.”
MacGyver allowed the silence to reign for a minute. “The question is can you put your vendetta aside and admit you were way off base about Kellie? We could use your help, Blake.”
“No shit, Sherlock! Did you forget that’s why I’m here?” A tentative smile cracked Blake’s lips. “I’ve got a plan.”
“What would that be?” Travis approached the ta
ble.
Blake’s smile transformed into a confident grin. MacGyver was well aware Blake hadn’t answered his question, but he was willing to overlook the omission for now, as long as there were no repeats of the tense scenes between Blake and Kellie.
“Palazzi has some reinforcements on the way. They’re coming by chopper.” Blake paused as he looked back and forth between Travis and MacGyver, obviously waiting for them both to catch up.
When only puzzled silence resulted, Blake rolled his eyes heavenward. “I was thinking I might borrow the bird when it lands.”
Chapter Sixteen
Kellie cracked her bedroom door open in time to hear Blake reveal, to a quietly attentive audience, the catastrophic moment that had changed her life forever. Her self-confidence momentarily crushed, she leaned her head against the door. So much for believing all those counseling sessions had been worth the money Uncle Sam paid. The knot in her chest was a sure sign her battered conscience had seen better days.
When Blake finished, a hush fell over the entire cabin. For twenty…thirty…forty seconds no one spoke. Kellie didn’t make a sound.
MacGyver broke the silence. “I get it. If it’d been one of my sisters, I can’t truthfully say I would have reacted any different than you. Blood is blood, no matter what, and protecting those we care about is automatic.”
His words echoed through her mind, not completely unexpected, yet devastating just the same. If he’d reached inside her chest and yanked out her heart, it wouldn’t have hurt any worse. Kellie closed the door quietly and pressed her hands over her ears as though she could make it all go away. Unmasked again, her sins laid bare for everyone to see—to judge—she was suddenly back in Baghdad. Hours of grueling questions, followed by nights when she didn’t dare close her eyes for fear of remembering, had been the easy part.
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