by Lori Ryan
Nori’s Delta (Special Forces: Operation Alpha)
Delta Team 3, Book One
Lori Ryan
Contents
Foreword
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
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Other Books By Lori Ryan
About the Author
More Special Forces: Operation Alpha World Books
Books by Susan Stoker
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
© 2020 ACES PRESS, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this work may be used, stored, reproduced or transmitted without written permission from the publisher except for brief quotations for review purposes as permitted by law.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy.
Dear Readers,
Welcome to the Special Forces: Operation Alpha Fan-Fiction world!
If you are new to this amazing world, in a nutshell the author wrote a story using one or more of my characters in it. Sometimes that character has a major role in the story, and other times they are only mentioned briefly. This is perfectly legal and allowable because they are going through Aces Press to publish the story.
This book is entirely the work of the author who wrote it. While I might have assisted with brainstorming and other ideas about which of my characters to use, I didn’t have any part in the process or writing or editing the story.
I’m proud and excited that so many authors loved my characters enough that they wanted to write them into their own story. Thank you for supporting them, and me!
This series is special to me as the five authors writing in the Delta Team Three series took a team that I introduced in Shielding Kinley and made them their own.
READ ON!
Xoxo
Susan Stoker
About the book
He won’t lose her again…
Delta Operative Heath “Woof” Davis has spent years living on the edge. Protecting a State Department official is just another assignment until he discovers that Eleanor Bonham is Nori Duncan, the one that got away. He can protect her from enemy forces in the Republic of Kazarus, but can he defend his heart from the woman who used to be his everything?
She’s not going to fall for a soldier boy…
High school was a long time ago, and Eleanor is no longer the heartbroken girl who ended things with Heath. She doesn’t have time for love, not if she’s going to rise in the ranks at State Department. But Heath is even more handsome than he was back then, and his years in the military have honed him into a man completely unlike the boy she once knew. With his sights set on her, how can she resist?
The mission in Kazarus is as important as it is dangerous. Eleanor and Heath will need to rely on one another if they are going to see the mission through. But will they be able to overcome past pain for the hope of a future?
** Nori's Delta is the 1st book in the Delta Team Three Series. Each book is a stand-alone, with no cliffhanger endings.
** Operation Alpha is a fan-fiction world for Susan Stoker's novels. The characters in this series were introduced in Stoker's Delta Team Two series, specifically, book two, Shielding Kinley. You don't have to read that book to be engrossed in this series, but why wouldn't you want to? Enjoy!
Chapter 1
His body made it on the plane but he felt like his stomach was still on the ground somewhere. Which wasn’t the least bit normal for him.
Heath Davis—known to his team and most everyone other than his dad and sisters as Woof—was the last to board the military transport set to take them to their next assignment. That was about all he knew so far. Waking up in the middle of the night and leaving for a mission with little or no notice came with the territory on Delta Team Three.
But he didn’t usually have to deal with the fog that surrounded his brain on this particular night and the crap feeling in the pit of his stomach. Even though the team had been out drinking the night before with Trigger and his team, a team they worked with often and had just finished a mission with, he didn’t expect to feel this way.
They’d met up with the guys at The Ugly Mug, a bar where they spent a lot of their down time. He probably shouldn’t have matched Doc shot for shot. That had been mistake number one.
When Grover and Oz joined in, shit had gone to hell fast.
Trigger and Lefty had brought their women and, truth was, it hurt to see Trigger and Lefty there with the women they’d fallen hard for. Somehow, despite the kind of work they do, those guys had made it work for them. They’d found amazing women who were nothing like the flaky, vain barracks babes who often threw themselves at them in bars, wanting nothing more than to say they’d fucked a special forces guy.
Heath had once hoped he might have the kind of love his friends had found, but it wasn’t looking like that was going to pan out for him.
So, yeah, he’d done something he hadn’t done in a long time. He’d gotten tanked and he was paying for it.
He opened his go bag and grabbed one of the small baggies he kept in the side pocket and tossed a handful of vitamins and supplements in his mouth. If it was a hangover, they might not help. But if he was getting sick, he needed to head it off now before it snowballed.
His teammate Zip, a guy who was all-smiles, all the time, handed him a bottle of water that Woof promptly used to wash down the pills and capsules. Jangles shook his blond head at both of them.
“They won’t save you,” Jangles said.
“But they won’t hurt,” Woof and Zip said in near unison. They both believed in the power of vitamins and homeopathic remedies and the team didn’t hold back on ribbing them on it.
Woof tipped his head back and finished the bottle of water. He knew the other thing that wouldn’t hurt was hydrating. Hitting the Middle East without feeling like he was all there would only get worse if he was dehydrated.
Merlin sank onto the bench beside Jangles, with Duff settling onto the bench across from them, rounding out the team. Merlin was the old man among them at thirty-five. Not that that was old, but his hair was starting to gray
around the edges and there was no way in hell they weren’t going to point that out to him any chance they got.
Duff didn’t say anything, only gave a nod to each of them. He didn’t ever say all that much, though. He was a big son-of-a-bitch and if his size wasn’t enough to scare off most people, his personality was. He made a scrub brush look soft and cuddly. Come to think of it, he made a scrub brush look chatty, too. But he was one of the team and the men were loyal to the core to him, same as he was to them.
Merlin passed a heavily encased tablet around the group. “We’re heading in to grab Eleanor Bonham at the Adana airport in Turkey. She’s the Associate Counselor for the US Department of State. We’re going to escort her into the Republic of Kazarus for a covert meeting with Onur Demir.”
Woof rested his arms on his knees and leaned forward. “Head of the Kazarus Freedom Army?”
Merlin gave a nod as Jangles passed the tablet on to Zip.
“She’s been tasked with negotiating a covert agreement with the KFA. We support them off the books and, if they’re successful in overthrowing the current regime, they’ll support our efforts against Al Qaeda and ISIS,” Merlin said. “We’ve got intel that the Kazarus government has been feeding weapons to the terrorist organizations and that shit has to stop. This is one of the ways our guys are attempting to cut off that pipeline.”
They all knew Al Qaeda and ISIS had begun working together lately. Each organization had been hit hard by the US and their allies in the Middle East, but if they were successful in banding together, the strides that had been made against them lately might be wiped out.
“Kazarus has never been particularly stable,” Woof said.
“No, it hasn’t,” Merlin agreed. When one of its surrounding nations wasn’t controlling it, Kazarus had been rife with bloodshed and civil war.
The current government was an absolute monarchy with the king, Ehsan Barrera, at the helm with his eight sons in line for the throne. The family had been in place for the past twenty-five years and didn’t seem inclined to give up their hold on the country and the small iron and oil reserves the land boasted.
“Demir and his rebel army claim to want to put a democracy in place. Our government wants to gamble on backing them if the terms are right,” Merlin said.
Woof took the tablet Zip handed him but didn’t look down at it yet. “Demir’s group has taken hostages in the past.”
Jangles was the one to answer this time. “They have. They’re still holding two doctors and three nurses from the US, England, and France hostage. It’s a complication.”
No one said anything. It wasn’t their job to question the decisions made by the people who told them what to do. They got their orders and they followed them. The person negotiating with Demir would need to walk that tightrope since the US didn’t make concessions where hostages were concerned.
Woof looked down at the tablet and lost his breath. Lost was the wrong word. It was knocked clean the hell out of him. He looked into the serious face of a slight woman in a suit gazing back at him with challenge and determination in her eyes.
Long straight brown hair framed hazel eyes and a mouth held in a flat line as she looked into the camera. He knew those eyes. There was a time when he’d been able to bring a smile to them and a curve to that stiff mouth, and he’d reveled in doing just that. In knowing he was the one who could do that to her.
That and other things. He shifted in his seat, his body going rock hard at the memories. That was a long-damned time ago, back when they were kids and he’d been innocent enough to believe nothing could touch him. Touch them. So damned naïve.
It wasn’t a surprise it had all gone to shit.
He blinked as he processed that her name had changed and looked back at the name on the file. Eleanor Bonham.
She’d been Eleanor Duncan when he knew her.
Well, damn, if that didn’t kick him in the gut. Not that it should.
It should mean nothing to him that Nori had gotten married. He hadn’t seen her in fifteen years. Of course she’d moved on and gotten married, built a life for herself. He wouldn’t let himself wonder if she had children. If she was happy. There was no point in going there.
She was a mission and the mission was all that mattered.
Yeah. Sure. He knew bullshit when he heard it and that was all he was spouting now.
He moved his gaze back to Merlin’s. “Credible threat or standard protection detail?”
“There’s been chatter about going after her to put a stop to the meeting. Nothing concrete yet and we aren’t sure who’s focused on her, but we’ll take it seriously anyway.”
Woof nodded. Damned right they would. He felt the same deep ache in his chest he’d felt when things had ended so long ago with Eleanor. She wouldn’t be happy to see him, but he wouldn’t let that keep him from making sure she got in and out of the fractious country and back to her husband without a scratch on her.
He had failed to protect Eleanor before, but things would be different this time. He wasn’t good for much in this world, but he was damned good at what he did for the military. And he’d make sure that skill was put to good use here. If Eleanor was headed into danger, he’d be there to see her through it.
Chapter 2
Eleanor didn’t bother to stop at the baggage carousels. She had one carry-on she was rolling behind her and an overnight bag slung over a shoulder. And she was still trying to cram her notes into the side pocket of said bag.
If her assistant was with her, she’d have handed the notes to her to put in the immaculately organized accordion file Beth kept with her at all times. There would be tabs and notes and everything cross referenced for Eleanor. But Beth would be coming in on a flight two hours from now so until then, Eleanor was on her own.
Truth be told, she was normally more organized than this herself, but flying always got to her. It was the one part of her job she didn’t love.
Eleanor could have had a car take her ahead to the base, but she didn’t much see the point in that when she could just as easily find a seat here and work while she waited the short time for Beth. They’d travel to the base together and meet up with the rest of the people that would be going into this negotiation with her.
She’d chosen people she had worked with in the past and trusted to be her support team. Marcus was a fantastic analyst and was easy to work with. He was younger than the others in the group, but his boyish, blond good looks belied a quick mind.
Geoff could be as prickly as his salt and pepper beard, but his mind was sharp and she liked the way he could break down issues with ease when they were in the middle of a situation.
Sharon was one of the fastest researchers they had in their office and Eleanor knew she might need that kind of talent when dealing with Onur Demir.
Her stomach flipped again and this time it wasn’t the dregs of motion sickness from the flight. It was the thought of the negotiation.
It wasn’t that she was nervous about it. It was just that she knew this was a make or break moment for her career. Normally her boss would handle this, but there were timing constraints involved and her boss was in Europe meeting with the leaders of three nations whose support was crucial to the success of several US endeavors going forward.
Eleanor spotted a chair in the far corner of the long room, well past the noise and chaos of the baggage pickup. It was just the type of quiet spot she needed. If she put her headphones on and focused on the upcoming meeting, she’d get just as much done there as she would if she went to the base.
She’d settle in and then let Beth know where to find her.
“Ms. Bonham!”
Eleanor slowed and searched for the sound of the voice. A man in fatigue pants and a buttoned-down shirt with rolled sleeves approached holding out an ID card.
“I’m glad I found you. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to,” he said in heavily accented English.
“Can I help you?” Eleanor shifted the bag on her shoulder
and faced the man.
“I’ve been sent to pick you up. Your assistant’s flight was moved up so she arrived earlier and was taken to the base already. We are to meet her and the rest of your team there.”
Eleanor studied his ID card, looking up to be sure his face matched. She nodded and switched her trajectory, following the man toward the doors heading outside. She’d planned to review the file on Onur Demir while she waited for Beth, but she could do that while the man drove. Hopefully he’d let her work in peace. Most of the time, if she didn’t start up a conversation and gave only short answers to any attempts from the other person, she could get people to leave her alone pretty quickly.
She pulled her phone out as she followed the man. She could at least check messages quickly before they got in the car. The man was guiding her through the crowd, talking about the need to hurry to the base before night fell, though she didn’t know why. Adana wasn’t a dangerous city, as far as she knew.
She kept one eye on the path the man was making for her as they made their way along the walkway and slid her thumb over her messages.
“Ma’am, we should get to the car. There is time for that once we’re on the road.”
