by Dale Mayer
Asher
The Mavericks, Book 5
Dale Mayer
Books in This Series:
Kerrick, Book 1
Griffin, Book 2
Jax, Book 3
Beau, Book 4
Asher, Book 5
Ryker, Book 6
Miles, Book 7
Nico, Book 8
Keane, Book 9
Lennox, Book 10
Gavin, Book 11
Shane, Book 12
Table of Contents
Title Page
About This Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
About Ryker
Author’s Note
Complimentary Download
About the Author
Copyright Page
About This Book
What happens when the very men—trained to make the hard decisions—come up against the rules and regulations that hold them back from doing what needs to be done? They either stay and work within the constraints given to them or they walk away. Only now, for a select few, they have another option:
The Mavericks. A covert black ops team that steps up and break all the rules … but gets the job done.
Welcome to a new military romance series by USA Today best-selling author Dale Mayer. A series where you meet new friends and just might get to meet old ones too in this raw and compelling look at the men who keep us safe every day from the darkness where they operate—and live—in the shadows … until someone special helps them step into the light.
A born protector, Asher signs up for jobs even the most trained men won’t take …
But finding a set of female autistic twins in mainland China—after someone has gone to a great deal of effort to make sure they are never found—isn’t easy. Finding those responsible behind the actual kidnapping is even harder …
Mickie, hired to look after the twins for the last six months, is still recovering from the trauma of being beaten and drugged, waking to find her adult charges gone. Beside herself already, then seeing Asher, her ex from ten years ago, is another sock to her gut. And to her heart. … She’s not the same person she was back then and, being with him again, shows her just how much she’d screwed up her relationship with him.
Yet betrayal, deceit and bodies litter their pathway as they struggle to save the missing women before the kidnapper’s assassins get close enough to take them out instead …
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Chapter 1
Asher Tromblay walked along Coronado Beach, wondering at the strange turn of his life. He was leaving Coronado, and this was his goodbye walk. Technically he was already no longer part of the naval world, and, after doing that job to help out Beau, Asher would head off on his own mission next. He just didn’t know when and didn’t know how. He’d already gotten rid of everything in his life except for a small sterile apartment in San Diego, and that was it. But then he didn’t want anything more.
It was so strange to be at this stage. When he entered the military and became a Navy SEAL, he never thought about life after the navy. Most men only lasted eight, maybe ten years. Asher had crossed that line himself now. The guys on the Mavericks team had all found something else to do with themselves, and he had too. More of the same, just better.
Just then his phone rang. He looked down and read the Caller ID. Mavericks. He laughed at that. “Asher here.”
“You ready?” Beau was on the other end.
Asher took a deep breath. “Ready? Where am I going?”
“How do you feel about Asia?”
He frowned at that. “After those girls sold into the sex trade?”
“Well, you’re going after somebody else over there,” Beau said. “We think it’s connected to the same deal we just came off of in Alaska, but that’s not the main concern. We are still working on that, but it’s not the focus of your mission.”
“Well, it should be a pretty big concern,” Asher said.
“Maybe,” he said. “What we’ve got is a set of twins.”
“Great,” he said with a laugh. “What age?”
“They’re thirty. They were picked up at their hotel room in Shanghai and apparently are being held for ransom somewhere in China.”
“What connections do they have to the Alaska cult?”
“None directly but maybe they intersect with another human trafficking ring or sex-trade black market operation. The twins are models,” he said. “Their mother is a highly sought after wedding planner for the rich and famous and was in China to research and to prepare for a high-profile wedding in Shanghai.”
“Why would the twins be kidnapped?” Asher asked.
“We’re hearing all kinds of theories. Maybe it’s a political statement. No clue. If you’re ready to go, you leave in five hours.”
“Well, I’m going,” he said, “but my Chinese sucks.”
“You’ll have a partner on the other side this time.”
“And who’s that?” he asked.
“Ryker. And another person will be helping out.”
“Who are we thinking has the twins?”
“I could be wrong, but the most direct link among the theories, consistent with the facts at hand, is that the mother has some client—either a current one or a hopeful future one—holding the twins captive, forcing the mother to take on the planning of some upcoming wedding.”
“Well, that brings up a whole new meaning to bridezilla,” Asher said, but no laughter was in his voice. He turned to face the ocean sprawled in front of him. “And these are thirty-year-old twins?”
“Yes. We understand they’re autistic.”
“Are they difficult to handle?”
“Yes. Probably so. At the same time, you must keep your eyes and ears open in case you hear any information on the sex traffickers.”
“We never did get any of that rundown after the Alaska op, did we?”
“The Mavericks team is working on it. They got a line on one supply chain.”
“Is this connected?”
“No, I don’t think so. Not from what we’ve got so far. But it would be nice to have closure.”
“And you, are you heading out on another job?”
“No. I’m here as your central communication center.”
“Are we ever doing team missions?”
“We help one person do a job, and then we’re into team jobs.”
“If you say so,” Asher said. “Did you ever think about quitting?”
“Before? All the time,” he said. “But it’s different now. We get to say no sometimes. We get to say yes sometimes. The budget is there. The decisions are ours—not the brass above us.”
“I get it,” Asher said. “Makes a whole lot of sense in many ways.”
“So, are you up for this?”
“I’m up for it,” he said. “How am I getting there?”
“Military transport, various kinds, disembarking at a US military base in South Korea.”
“And from there?”
“And from there,” he said, “you’re on your own.”
“My backup will be there?”
“Your backup plus one will be there,” Beau said.
“Who’s the plus-one?”
“Her name is Mickie,” he said.
“I only know one woman named Mickie,” Asher said. “It better not be her.”
“Yep. Sorry. It’s her. She’s the private nurse for the twins.”
And then Beau was gone, leaving Asher staring at the phone in shock. Mickie was his ex-fiancée from his early days in the military. While she’d finished nursing school, he’d gone into SEALs training, and then, she’d gone into Doctors without Borders.
What the hell was she doing in Asia on this assignment as a family nurse and as his plus-one? That didn’t bear thinking about.
Of all the women in the world he wanted to see again, she was not one.
Chapter 2
Asher had hitched an undocumented ride on a US military cargo plane across the Pacific Ocean, arriving in the wee hours this morning, now Tuesday, having jumped over the rest of his Monday into his new time zone here, to slip his way on board a nearby navy ship to crash for a few hours. He now stood on the deck of the USS Chosin and stared at the town in front of him as the sun rose. He was docked at the US base in South Korea. Nobody was allowed to know he was here. Nobody was allowed to know he was leaving. Such was his current life. But then, as he had no end of files on his cell phone and a disk in his fingers and a laptop in his backpack, that was about all the help he would get.
Except for his backup plus one. That still really bothered him that Mickie was his plus-one. He couldn’t imagine what was going on there, but the order had been given. It was up to him whether to follow that order, but this was the only order he had. And maybe he could live with that. The trouble was, this op was a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. Thankfully he had a backup. Ryker. Asher just didn’t know where his partner was yet. He took several deep breaths of the fresh morning air and then walked down the disembark plank.
Once on the boardwalk, he kept walking. Several others had disembarked with him. Asher was a little more obvious in that he wasn’t in uniform. He had deliberately kept to the center of the crowd. He had gear with him that he would need to set up, but he wanted to be on land and away from the base first. Something about working mostly alone had him looking at everybody, including other servicemen, even navy seamen, as potentially being part of the problem. If Asher was the solution, who else was out there? And what were they doing? And were they on his side or somebody else’s side?
He shrugged and moved forward.
As soon as his group reached an open area, he could see more and more crowds filing in to meet up with the seamen just getting off. Asher stepped to the side, slipped around the corner of a building, and headed toward Seoul, but his real destination was the Port of Incheon area. He wanted to reach Shanghai as soon as he could. He’d done some research on the best method of travel to get him into China, and flying seemed the fastest and the easiest.
Except he wanted nobody to see his face, so a private boat would be the better option to sneak him in. His backpack was full of cash, and he could access more if he needed it. He headed along the edge of the walkway, his gaze covertly searching the whole area. He would recognize his backup.
As soon as he separated a little more from the group, his gaze caught sight of a tall male, dressed all in black, leaning against the ropes up ahead, his face turned away from Asher. That set of shoulders. That haircut. Even though it had grown out, it was still short. Asher walked up and passed him and said, “Good morning.” This man was yet another old friend of his. Inside, he was grinning.
Ryker stepped in behind him. As soon as they were in among the buildings, Ryker, beside Asher now, said, “We have a boat.”
“Good,” Asher said. “Do we need other supplies first?”
“No, we have pretty much everything we need from here, and, what we don’t have, we can pick up in China.”
“Good enough.” China was well-known for having anything and everything available for a price. And it wasn’t even all that expensive. Within minutes, they turned onto a smaller dock where a good half-dozen boats were tied up. One of them looked more like a speedboat than anything. He assumed that was his. But, no, Ryker took Asher to another, a fishing boat.
Ryker hopped in. “Grab the line, will you?”
Asher quickly untied the knot from the dock and tossed the rope into the back of their boat; then he stepped in as well and moved forward. Ryker turned on the engine and put out toward the open sea. As Asher looked around, this boat was just one of many and was a whole lot more inconspicuous than the speedboat would have been, although the speedboat would have been faster.
As soon as they were out and away from everybody, Ryker turned, looked at him, and said, “You might want to sit down.”
Asher raised his eyebrows but sat down in the passenger seat as Ryker opened up the throttle, and the engine surged forward. Asher let out a laugh because, under cover of a fishing boat camouflage was one very sweet engine.
Ryker shouted over the wind, “Totally different deal this time, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said, “but I’m liking it.”
“Did you ever do much undercover work?”
Asher shrugged. “Not enough. This is definitely what I prefer.”
“Me too,” Ryker said. After that, they just shared silence for a long time.
Finally Asher had to ask, “I heard we have a plus-one?”
Ryker nodded. “But Mickie is not here. She’s in Shanghai.”
“Okay,” he said slowly, still stunned she was involved at all. “So why were the twins in Shanghai when they were taken, yet the mother was working on some China wedding?”
Ryker laughed. “I think the first stopover was China. Then the second part of the trip had them in Shanghai.”
“Okay,” Asher said, still considering this new information. “Do we know why Mickie is with us?”
“She was separated from the twins,” Ryker said. “When they were kidnapped, she was knocked out and drugged heavily. When she came to, the police didn’t appear to care too much about what had happened. Then the mother contacted somebody who contacted the Mavericks and set her up with us.”
“And the advantage of having Mickie is what?”
“Apparently, when we grab the twins, they can be a little difficult,” Ryker said.
“As anybody with special needs can be. Hell, I can be on any given day,” Asher said with a nod. “So maybe it did make sense that she was there. But I’m surprised. She’s doing private nursing?”
“I don’t know anything about it,” Ryker said. “She was a nurse with Doctors without Borders in the past. I know that much, but apparently now she’s doing this.”
Asher wasn’t even sure what this was, but it had been a good eight years since he’d seen her and ten years since they were engaged.
Ryker glanced at him. “Problems?”
Asher’s smile slid sideways. “No, we have a history. That’s all.”
Ryker chuckled. “Of course you do. It’s not like anything would ever be easy.”
“It was a long time ago. We were very young.”
“Got it,” Ryker said. “Chances are she’s married with half-a-dozen kids already.”
That threw Asher. If she was, she surely wouldn’t be hired as a live-in private nurse outside of the States, would she? But no point in asking questions nobody could answer. Much better to wait and see how the chips fell. He was a professional. His job was to return the twins safely to their family. According to his notes, home was in Geneva.
And then he thought about Mickie and Geneva and realized that her gig made more sense than he thought. Because Mickie’s grandmother had been Swiss, and the last time he’d seen her grandmother, she was in good health but aging rapidly. Maybe Mickie had left the Doctors without Borders organization to look after her grandmother? Again he found himself questioning and doubting the circumstances when there was really no point. They’d get answers soon enough. Hopefully first thing this afternoon when they reached Shanghai.
Michaella Hunker, Mickie for short, w
aited impatiently in a small hotel in Shanghai. She couldn’t sleep, and she kept checking the time. Currently it was just before one p.m., Tuesday, the day after the kidnapping. Actually about thirty-six hours later. But she had been drugged for the first eight hours, which was a blessing of sorts, cutting short her actual worry time, but she hated that the twins were in the hands of their kidnappers for so long. For too long.
This was definitely not Mickie’s first choice of location for a meet, given the kidnapping of the twins from here, but the twins’ mother, Chandra, had ordered Mickie to await the US team coming to help, while Chandra had promptly booked herself into another hotel. So Mickie had been trapped here another twenty-eight hours, given the team’s flight time of around twelve hours and another eight for a secret boat ride into Shanghai, not to mention the five-hour delay before the team’s plane even left the States and maybe a short nap had been thrown in there somewhere too. She just hoped, with the time zone changes involved—some fifteen to sixteen hours ahead of California’s time zone—that this team was well rested and had no jet lag issues.
She’d been on the oceans around here several times during her stints with Doctors without Borders. But after Mickie left that organization to look after her grandmother, her life had been at a much more sedate pace. And yet, she still found herself automatically reverting to some of her automatic responses during her years with Doctors without Borders. As in hating the crowds here, yet loving the atmosphere.
But, at the same time, that seemed like a lifetime away. Her grandmother had passed away six months ago after a two-and-a-half-year-long illness, where Mickie had been at her side every day. That loss hurt so badly that Mickie hadn’t wanted to stick around the empty house. Said empty house had been left to her, along with enough money that she didn’t have to work, but she didn’t want to sit there with the memories and the pain and the grief rolling through her.
So, when one of her grandmother’s friends had asked Mickie to help look after the daughters—Amelia and Alisha—of a famous wedding planner she knew, Mickie had agreed. The twins were autistic but, due to their ethereal beauty, had done a stint at modeling and had taken the world by storm.
