Best news of all? Sec Def had ordered the brand-new Secretary of the Navy to get his house in order, and make damned sure former USN LT Walker Judge got his Trident back.
Overall, Goff’s diabolical Black Dragon Syndicate had proven how poorly he’d chosen throughout his naval career. But not Persia. She’d only ever chosen light and life and honor, and those things had come back around to work for her now. For that, Walker was grateful.
But holy shit, it’d been one helluva close call. If he hadn’t connected with Izza in Puerta Vallarta when he had… If Alex hadn’t been the OCD asshole that he was and stored all those medical supplies on board… If Walker hadn’t left his pistol with Persia when Goff ordered him overboard…
Things could’ve gone so, so wrong. A chill shivered over his shoulders at how much he would’ve lost if he and Ryder had taken off like he’d planned. Shit. Persia would be dead or whored out by now. Damn Peckering’s and Goff’s souls to the lowest pits in Hell.
The quiet rap at his door told Walker that Izza was back. That knock was his signal to get moving for the day. He and she had been taking turns staying with Persia. Walker suspected Alex knew he’d spent the night with his agent, but it seemed smart not to rub that fact in his new boss’s face.
Easing out from beneath her lush, warm body, Walker showered, dressed, and exited the cabin as quickly and quietly as possible. When he closed the door behind him, she was still on her stomach and asleep. Her glossy black hair draped her pillow, and he could hear her breathing. Good. She needed to stay that way for another day or two.
“How is she?”
Walker turned to find Alex asking, not Izza. Shit. “She’s having a hard time accepting that Peckering got the drop on her. But she’ll be okay.”
“Did you tell her about Goff?”
“Not yet.”
“More nightmares?”
Ah, so Alex knew about those. Walker nodded, not willing to divulge anything personal about Persia. Those were her stories to tell.
“She decent?”
“She’s asleep.” Alex could take that however he wanted.
Unexpectedly, he ran a hand over his head and turned to stare off the port side. “I’ve got sleep-aids and pain pills, but they’re just temporary fixes and all that crap comes with side-effects. She doesn’t need them.”
“Sleep’ll do her the most good. She’ll snap out of it. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried, I’m pissed. Should’ve known Peckering had someone watching the marina in Portugal.”
“Well, he isn’t a step ahead of us now, is he? Neither’s Goff.”
“So…. What’s next?” That was unprecedented, Alex asking Walker for his thoughts on a way forward.
The more he worked with Alex, the more Walker understood the guy. “You tell me. You’re the boss of this outfit.”
“We still need to know who’s buried in Goff’s grave. And I need to tell you about Dan Peters and the Black Dragon Syndicate.” Alex nodded aft. “Izza fixed breakfast. Let’s eat first, then there’s someone I want you to meet.”
“Out here? On the ocean? What’s he going to do, just drop in?”
“Something like that.”
Walker joined his boss in the galley.
“For you,” Izza said, handing him a mug of coffee. “Didn’t know if you liked cream or sugar.”
“Black’s good. Thanks,” Walker said, curling his fingers around the cup.
McQueen and Brimley were engrossed in a discussion about art and painting, of all things. Ryder had recovered from being taken down by Goff. At least, his head had. His pride? Not so much. He lifted a mug to Walker in a silent salute, his dark eyes mellow, yet still sharp.
Alex’s sat phone rang. He palmed it out of his pocket, answered it, then handed it to Izza, his brows spiked nearly to his hairline. “It’s for you.”
“Me?” She took the call. “Hello?” Her eyes turned into puddles of melted fudge. “Aww, Connor…”
Walker had to look away. He didn’t care if Connor was the world’s biggest sissy. What he had with Izza was what Walker wanted with Persia. Only she needed rest more than she needed him. Yeah, it was only temporary, but how he wanted his woman.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Turned out Walker didn’t have to wait long. A low flying Piper Cub dropped two black chutes into the blue sky over San Diego Harbor. “That who you’re expecting?” he asked Alex.
“Prepare for men overboard.” Already on his feet, Alex ran to the swim deck shucked off his shirt, prepared to dive in if needed. How about that, not a single tattoo. That surprised Walker. The man was fit. Not heavily muscled, but athletically trim. Tanned. Scarred a little. But solid. A true alpha predator if Walker had ever seen one.
In no time, they hauled two more TEAM agents aboard. One was a mocha-colored behemoth, the other a blond that could only be Connor, the way Izza squealed as she tackled him. “Aw, baby! You’re here!”
Her husband was not what Walker expected. Not at all. The guy looked more like a tanned surfer dude who’d just scored the perfect pipeline off Oahu’s world-famous North Shore. Like a love-starved sap, he dipped her back in his arm, kissed and groped the hell out of her, right in front of everyone.
“Later, you two,” Alex groused as he clasped the other man’s hand. “Walker Judge, this is Zack Lennox. Loverboy over there’s Connor Maher.”
Connor stopped molesting his wife long enough to toss Walker a cocky grin. The guy was Walker’s height and just as wide across the shoulders. Bright blue eyes. Perfect white teeth. One of those cover model types. Setting Izza back on her feet, he stuck a hand out. “LT. I’ve been looking forward to this day. Good to finally meet you.”
Felt like freakin’ “Groundhog Day” all over again. Someone else who’d actually wanted to meet him? Walker shook Connor’s hand, still getting used to this new, expanded reality. Being welcomed by anyone and everyone was going to take some getting used to.
The man standing with Alex was everything Connor was not. Zack Lennox was built like a tank. Tanned. Shaved head. Black brows and a ton of wrinkles stretched across his forehead when he smiled. Which he was doing now. He’d already climbed out of his wet gear. Down to nothing but red swim trunks, he’d exposed a massive chest, and a tattooed sleeve draped over a shoulder that could’ve passed for a side of beef. His arms were as thick as tree limbs. Like Ryder, Zack was built heavy and durable. But his skin was lighter than Ryder’s. More of cream, than of coffee.
After he donned a white t-shirt he pulled out of his bag, he didn’t waste time with a handshake. Instead, he grabbed Walker into one helluva manly bro hug and growled, “Thanks, you son of a bitch. My wife thanks you. My three little girls thank you. God, man… I…”
Walker stilled as the guy who could break him in half choked up. Without thinking, he patted the massive muscles across Zack’s back. “It’s okay. Really. It’s okay.”
Zack shoved back and dashed the back of his hand over his eyes. “You don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, do you?”
“Umm, no,” Walker had to admit. But he wasn’t going to argue with “Mighty Joe Young” here.
Zack tipped his head back and laughed, but when he lowered his chin, his big brown eyes were luminous with unshed tears. “You did it,” he said as he dashed a wrist over his eyes this time, blinking like he knew he was crying, and he didn’t care who saw. “You did what Alex and me couldn’t. You found them and you ended them. The Black Dragon Syndicate. Do you know how many years we’ve been hunting those bastards?”
“Seems like forever,” Alex said. “Grab a chair. Izza just made breakfast. Dig in.”
“Nah, I’m good,” Zack muttered. “Want to talk to this guy about the Dragons for a few. Join us?”
“Sure,” Alex answered. “Cockpit okay?”
“Hell, yeah,” Zack breathed. “Wait. I’ll grab a couple drinks. Man, I’m thirsty.”
Izza dashed
to the table where she’d set up another tasty looking buffet. “Orange juice or water?”
“OJ’s good.”
A couple dripping bottles sailed end over end in Zack’s direction. “Thanks, Izza. We won’t be long.”
She grinned like the cat that ate the canary. “Take all the time you need.”
Walker settled sideways behind the wheel while Alex swiveled the co-pilot seat around to face Zack, who’d made himself comfortable on the bench. He’d already drained one OJ dry.
“Man, that’s good,” he said as he cast Walker a sideways glance. “I don’t know about you, but jumping out of airplanes always scares the crap out of me. Bet you’re just like Adam, though. You like skydiving?”
“I like flying, not falling. Adam can keep that shit,” Walker muttered. “I take it you guys have both been inside the Dragons? Did you know Goff?”
Alex growled. “Only Peters, the lying bastard.”
Zack shook his head. “Never met your CO, but yeah, a few years back, The TEAM tangled with the guy we thought was in charge. Guess Peters wasn’t, but we didn’t know about Admiral Pickering and Commander Goff then. D.C. Interpol Director Daniel Peters took that detail to his grave, but not before he and his goons got the jump on us in the office one day and…”
Zack seemed to be having trouble speaking, so Walker waited.
“Fucker almost killed us. Me and Mark. David and Harley and—”
“I was out of the office the day Peters brought an army to kill my TEAM,” Alex growled.
“He’d already bombed our underground parking garage,” Zack said. “Damn near killed Alex. That’s the only reason you weren’t there when he showed.”
Alex nodded. “Yeah, but he didn’t anticipate my TEAM.”
Zack grunted. “What that smug bastard didn’t expect was that you’d lived. Almost lost my job over that op.”
“You did what you had to do.”
Zack turned to Walker. “I was working a joint op with ATF when I stumbled across a little girl being sold by the Dragons. I couldn’t just leave her. She was so cold, barely breathing. Ended up screwing the op to save her. Pissed Alex off, but only because it put him in the middle of a war with then ATF Director Kevin Carducci. But it also led me to join up with Mei Xing, a mother looking for her kidnapped daughter—”
“The Dragons took her daughter?”
“Yes and no. Mei thought they’d taken LiLi, but Mei was a crazy, mad woman back then. She was running on nothing but fumes, not thinking right. Her boyfriend, LiLi’s biological father, was the one who’d kidnapped her. Bastard took her out of the country. But when Mei got wind of a child smuggling ring working inside the District, she jumped to conclusions. Little did we know then, but it turned out her ex came from old money. He’d had her apartment wired, then paid a couple jerks to pass themselves off as phony detectives and cops to respond to her calls for help. When she thought law enforcement failed her, Mei took the law into her own hands and” —he ran a big hand over his bare head— “turned into a walking nightmare.”
Alex nodded. “Mei was fierce. She finagled her way into the Bureau, DC Metro’s main precinct, the local morgue, Child Services, even Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE. That about sums up what was running through her veins back then. Nothing but sheer grit and a helluva lot of ice water. Poor thing thought she was good enough to infiltrate my TEAM.”
“Let me guess,” Walker drawled. “You shot her down.”
“You know it,” Zack answered. “He’s got the instincts of a stone-cold killer, but the heart of a lion.”
Alex’s nostrils flared as if he’d smelled something that didn’t agree with him.
Walker let the comment slide, but Zack had summed up Alex perfectly.
“Anyway…” Zack lifted his face to the roof. “Boss tasked me to work with Mei. Mei thought I was a joke, a playboy. I thought she was a beast.”
“Which she probably was,” Walker added. “Quinn Dooley was the same kind of beast when he first approached me about going into Guatemala. Desperate moms and dads are like that.”
“Yes, I get that now. But I wasn’t a father then. I’d just come home from the sandbox and was working for Alex. After my time in the Corps, I just wanted to live my life, you know what I mean? I had a fast car and a bachelor pad. I thought I had everything. I was living the life. But working with her was like playing with a buzz saw every single day.”
Alex grunted. “She was just a mom under stress.”
“I understand, but nothing I said or did was right or good or fast enough for her back then. Every word out of her mouth was just plain bitter and nasty. Trust me, my wife’s tongue can slice you to ribbons before you know what you did to piss her off, but” —he sucked in a deep breath— “everything changed the morning we infiltrated one of the Dragons’ illegal foster homes…”
Walker stilled as Zack stopped talking.
The gleam in his eyes was gone. A full minute passed before he could speak. “The second I picked this one little girl up” —his voice turned low and somber— “the exact damned second I had her little butt sitting on my forearm… Her name was Song, but she smelled so bad, and she was so small and soft. She had cradle cap and lice and thrush, but when she blinked up at me… when I looked down into her pretty brown eyes… When she snuggled under my chin and sighed like she was finally wanted and loved and…”
His big fist came up and thumped the center of his expansive chest. “It got to me, Walker,” he growled, his voice tight and his eyes gleaming. “Right here. She was so little and so damned helpless. That place” —the muscles in his thick neck worked as he forced a swallow— “reeked of urine and filth. Nothing was clean. And the bitch showing us her wares—all those babies—was smoking! With those little baby girls still in cribs, that old hag had a cigarette hanging off her nasty lip, and they were breathing her shitty air! And then we… Then I… Shit! I didn’t think talking to you was going to be this hard.”
Zack’s fingers curled into fists. Whatever he needed to say seemed too hard for him to articulate, so Walker said it for him. “Then you knew exactly how Mei felt.”
“Yeah, yeah, right. Then I knew nothing else mattered. I… we” —his index finger toggled between Alex and him— “had to get back into that shithouse and save Song and all those other babies. Like I said, nothing about that op went right. I damned near got beat to death, and Mei was insane with worry. But in the end, we saved three hundred and eleven little ones, didn’t we, Boss?”
“We did,” Alex answered quietly. “Some were straight out of China’s orphanages. Others had been kidnapped. It was a human tragedy of epic proportions, right in the middle of Washington, DC.”
“But we got Song out of there, by hell,” Zack insisted. “Mei and I fostered her until we were able to adopt her. Not long after, Mother found LiLi in Paris. I went over there to bring her home. But man, when I finally had her safe in my car, she was just like her mom. Sharp-tongued and emotionally unstable. So damned demanding.” He ran a quick hand over his head again. “And I loved it.”
“Women do have a power all their own,” Walker murmured, thinking of the dark-haired, strong-willed, and very capable agent he’d fallen in love with.
“They do,” Alex sighed. “So, listen up. Walker, you’ll team up with Zack and Senior Agent David Tao.”
“You want me to work with you?” Walker asked Zack. “But you don’t even know me.”
Zack grinned. “So? I got a feeling it’ll be fun.”
“Exactly what do you do?”
Alex turned somber. “We rescue children and women who are either already being trafficked or who are in transit. We pull them out of human trafficker’s hands, and, when possible, we end the bastards who captured them, as quietly as possible. David Tao operates The TEAM safe house in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He’s my single point of refuge in a culture that feeds off its young.”
“You’ll like him,” Z
ack added. “David’s a great guy. He’s quiet and reserved. A Buddhist. Never gets mad. Could’ve been a monk, but I swear, the man can hit a gnat’s eye at a thousand yards.”
Walker doubted that. “And you? What do you do?”
The sparkles in Zack’s stare darkened. “I’m the guy who goes into the dying rooms in China’s state-run orphanages. I adopt the babies no one else wants. The ones waiting to die. If I can’t adopt them, I… I find a way…”
“Jesus,” Walker breathed. He’d heard about those wretched rooms. Couldn’t imagine the emptiness in a child’s soul that made him want to die. “You smuggle them out of the country?”
“Well, yeah. I’m sure as hell not going to leave them.”
Walker pursed his lips. Man, these guys were bigger than life. And they had guts.
“I’ll be honest, it’s damned tough work,” Alex said. “It’s heartbreaking. Won’t be easy.”
“Always feels like I’m walking into a concentration camp when I first get there,” Zack added.
“Is it legal? You going into China to do that?” Walker asked his boss.
“Hell, no. It’s black ops work, and it’s dangerous. But there are a lot of good people over there who can’t tolerate what goes on with their country’s unwanted girls.”
“And I’ve got a few sources who’ve put their lives on the line for me. They’ve been telling me I needed more help and” —a big toothy grin split Zack’s face— “here you are.”
“How can you stand it?”
“What? Saving kids? Babies?” Zack shrugged. “Nothing else I’d rather do.”
“But you can’t save them all.”
Alex growled even as Zack replied, “But I can save some. Like Song. I saved her, didn’t I?”
Walker stared into this brash man’s dark brown eyes. This was a warrior made of different steel than most. He enjoyed what he did. “So it’s just you, me, and David Tao saving the world?”
“Beau Villanueva and Hunter Christian will also join this task force against human trafficking,” Alex said. “Smoke Montoya wants in. Cord Shepherd, Seth’s brother-in-law, too. Senator Sullivan’s offered up Pagan Sinclair. You know him?”
Walker (In the Company of Snipers Book 21) Page 40