Code Name: Kayla's Fire (A Warrior's Challenge)

by Natasza Waters

  Nina’s brows popped. “There aren’t that many?”

  Kayla slid onto the kitchen chair. “No, but just about.” She flipped the pages of a magazine she’d already read fifteen times. “Have you called home?”

  “Every night,” Nina said, leaning against the counter and bumping the back of her head against the cabinet slowly. “Did I hear you talking with that cop Manchester today?”

  “Yup, they didn’t get anything of use from the kid the Shark hired. He didn’t show himself, just offered him money and instructions by phone.”

  “How long will this go on? Gabby is going to be a foot taller by the time I see her again. I talk to her every night, but I miss my baby. I’m going bonkers living like this. No offense, but I didn’t get along with my big sister when we had to share space either.”

  Kayla tossed the magazine across the table. “The Shark must be going bat shit crazy by now. I don’t understand why they just don’t plant me in the middle of the street and wait it out.”

  Nina stopped banging her head, and brought the whistling kettle over to the table, filling their cups.

  “I don’t think the Captain would go for that idea, but I’m sure those poor guys watching us all the time wished you would.” Nina sat in the chair across from her. “How long do you think Alpha Squad’s mission is going to be?”

  She blew the steam from her cup, and shook her head. “Days to months. It depends on the severity, how much recon they have to do, what’s at stake. A mission can take an endless amount of planning or spur of the moment decisions.” Flicking her tongue after burning it on the hot tea, she said, “Alpha Squad has extensive training in everything from psychological strategies to heavy-duty mechanics, and just about everything in between. They can all pilot several types of aircraft, speak several languages, change their appearances, how they act to infiltrate a village and mix in. They can put a bloody mini sub together underwater and swim in the arctic cold as long as their tanks last. All of them can run for miles and swim farther than that. Team One Alpha is an elite squad.” She placed her mug on the table, understanding more than Nina what that meant. “You’ve heard of the DevGru, which gets a lot of attention, but One Alpha holds their own. Personally I think it’s because of Thane.”

  “You’re not biased at all, are ya?” she teased. “But, why does he go out with them? He’s really in charge, isn’t he? I mean he’s not supposed to be out there, is he?”

  “No, but the U.S. Navy wasn’t going to argue when he continued to deploy with his men. Captain Redding takes up the administrative slack when he’s gone.”

  “You have yourself an honest to goodness hero, who’s head over heels in love with you.” Nina said, offering her a grin. “Not to mention he has to be the hottest-looking guy on the friggin’ planet. Seriously, he could be a model.”

  Kayla smirked. She shouldn’t, but she gave way to a little bit of pride. “That would mean vanity, and although the Captain is bursting with ego, he’s not vain about it, if that makes any sense. He knows his strengths and weaknesses. They all do. It’s what keeps them alive. And then there’s Mace.”

  Nina cleared her throat and sat back in the chair. “Yeah, he’s pretty, wow.”

  “Wow, meaning?”

  Nina picked a hair winding under her collar. “Do you think he’s okay?”

  She nodded, understanding Nina’s worry. “If something goes wrong, we’ll be one of the first to know. That’s how it works. We monitor them if it’s cleared, and doesn’t pose a threat to them, and we’re first contact after extraction.”

  “To be honest, I’m out of my mind scared for some reason.”

  “Some reason, huh? Tall, hunky and sweet, going by the name of Mace Callahan would be the reason.”

  Nina’s green eyes scoured her. “I don’t know what happened. I mean, I can look at a thousand guys and they don’t do a thing for me. I have Gabby and my mind’s always on her. I…I…”

  “Those SEALs can do that to a woman. They’re not just everyday guys. They are the premier warriors, and their strength, stealth and abilities make them extremely attractive to women. Hence the Frog Hogs.”

  “The what?” she said breaking into a grin.

  “SEAL groupies. They get a bum rap, really. They’re just like any other girl who wants an honorable, strong man.”

  “Mace, he’s not into…” Nina fiddled with the corner on the magazine.

  Kayla remained silent, tipping her cup and shrugging. “They all have. Guy meets girl, buys girl drink, and gets down and dirty. They’re not saints, but somewhere along the way, even the players settle down.”

  “Do you believe in love at first sight? I mean I didn’t, but then Mace, he…pheww. I sound like a sixteen-year-old, don’t I?”

  “No, actually you sound like you might have a wee bit of crush on him.”

  “Crush, shit.” She barked with laughter. “God, when we left you guys after your fight and walked down to the beach that night, I unraveled. We hit the sand in a tangle of arms and legs and couldn’t stop. That’s never happened to me before. He’s unbelievable, and I’m thinking I’m going to get pulverized here. He’s a player isn’t he?” Nina nudged her bottom lip with her finger and nibbled on it.

  She yawned at the same time a laugh came bubbling up. “Nina, you’re doing it again.”

  “What?”

  “You never give yourself enough credit.” Taking another sip of her tea and burning her tongue, she walked to the freezer and picked an ice cube from the tray. “Next to Thane, Mace is my favorite SEAL in the world. I was wishing he’d find someone super-special, because he’s special.” Dropping the cube unceremoniously into her cup with a splash, she said, “Guess I got my wish.”

  Nina flushed. “So you don’t think it was just, you know, a one-nighter?”

  “Nina, I hate to tell you this, but we heard you at the ranch for three nights straight. In fact, I’m pretty sure the entire house heard you, many times over. That kinda loving isn’t a one-nighter, it’s a lifetimer. I heard Thane threatening Mace that there better not be any holes in the walls.”

  Nina blushed even redder. “Yeah, well, when Captain Austen came down to the kitchen—the next afternoon I might add, to get some food and take it back upstairs, I heard Lieutenant Cobbs ask him if he should check to make sure you weren’t chained to the bed.”

  Now it was her turn to flush. “Okay, okay, truce.”

  “Kayla, he wants to meet Gabby. I mean, I think he honestly does.”

  “Of course he does. Mace would be a great dad.”

  “Ho,” Nina gusted. “I don’t know. These SEALs, they live hard and die hard. What if I fall in love with him? I’m pretty careful with who I let into Gabby’s life.”

  “If—you fall in love with him?” She laughed at her. “Age old question every woman wallows in when she’s attracted to a SEAL. It isn’t an easy one to answer.” A wickedly hard question to answer, more like. “They’re away for months at a time. Even their training missions are dangerous. When they do a workup before deployment they do it like no other special ops group.”

  “You’re so lucky the Captain isn’t going to deploy any more, once this mission is over.”

  “It’s not over yet, for any of us.”

  * * * *

  Kayla nodded her thanks to Ross from Team Three as he held the door open for her to Base Command. Her thoughts kept flipping back to her conversation with Nina the night before. It wasn’t always active warfare that took a warrior’s life, accidents happened, and a red glowing cannonball of truth sat in every woman’s belly watching the SEAL she loved walk out the door. She’d left Nina with words of wisdom she needed to trust herself.

  “Don’t paint pictures, Nina. You’ll drive yourself crazy. More than anything, you have to believe in them and their skills. They’ll walk closer to death’s door than any serviceman, but they don’t want to die either. They’ll do what has to be done. A woman who loves a SEAL has to accept that, and know it�
��s done to save a life or the mission, but it’s always with honesty and valor.”

  Kayla slid her card through the reader and cracked the door to the Command Center. Her steps slowed as she saw five people huddled together over the intel computer. All heads rose and Captain Redding took a tentative step toward her. “Kayla—”

  She stopped in the middle of the room, not wanting to walk any closer. Lieutenant Law, Barry, John and Nina all stared at her. It was Nina’s face she read first. While the others tried to hide it, Nina couldn’t. The silence scared her the most.

  “No, Kayla,” Captain Redding said with a severe expression. “It’s not good news.”

  Her hand instinctively went to her stomach. Could she say the words out loud? Make them real? Fill the room and listen to them echo with a sullen truth. “Is my warrior dead?” She barely whispered the words.

  Captain Redding’s gaze fell to the floor.

  “Captain? Don’t…” Suddenly cold, her throat thick, she cleared it. “SITREP,” she said in a strong voice.

  Law coughed, and drew her attention. “Caleb, Clay and Mace have surfaced. Mace is being flown to a hospital in Germany. His injuries are critical.”

  Her gaze shot to Nina, who closed her eyes, her face paling.

  Law continued. “Caleb’s intel says the mission took a dive. Tangos got wind of who they were. Ghost has the woman they were sent to retrieve and Nathan was with them when they were separated. Fox, Tinman and Cobbs have disappeared. We don’t know their position or status.”

  She dropped her bag where she stood, and turned toward a solitary computer that accessed the satellite systems.

  “What are you doing, Kayla?” John asked, seeing where she was headed.

  She didn’t answer, activating the link to a satellite passing over the Middle East. The group shuffled quickly to hover over her shoulder.

  “I thought that was read only,” Nina said.

  Kayla opened a secure hidden file on the computer. One she’d put there long ago. Every day she updated it, breaking the code.

  “Christ, Kayla are you kidding?” Lieutenant Law blurted, watching her take control as the view began to cross the Sudan, Egypt and settle over Syria.

  “No one in this department has that code,” Captain Redding said. “We don’t control the Sat…”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the Captain then maneuvered the satellite into position by inputting latitudes and longitudes.

  “How the hell…” Captain Redding sighed. “Kayla…”

  Initiating a full zoom and scan, she found the village where she’d last seen the squad.

  Law leaned closer. “Have you been watching them the whole time, Snow White?”

  “Yes,” she said, afraid to look at her captain and inputting some final minor adjustments.

  “How did you find them?” Law asked.

  Typing in another command, a grouping of small dots with a series of letters and numbers appeared in the middle of a forested area with a small farming village sitting on its edge. “Thank God.” She sat back against the chair, but then one more appeared, its blue pulse slow. “No.”

  Captain Redding leaned over as well. “Who’s that?”

  “It’s Thane, his body functions are low, heartbeat, blood pressure. What’s happened?” No time to dwell. She recorded the lat and long, and then went for another dot. Another blue one. “Cobbs,” she said her throat tightening. “He’s hurt. They both are. His vitals aren’t strong.”

  “What the hell.” A new voice, one she’d only heard a few times, made her freeze. Admiral Timmons. Her fingernails clicked on the keyboard, but she didn’t enter anything. “Sir.” She swiveled in her chair. Did karma always have to bite her in the ass?

  Admiral Timmons looked down at her with cold blue eyes. “Might have guessed. Is that our missing team?” he asked, looking at the monitor.

  She licked her dry lips. “Yes, sir.”

  Timmons swiped his jaw with a slow hand. “Lieutenant Law, one hour in the air. Retrieval ops.”

  “Yes, sir.” Law swept from the room, already on his phone.

  “Ms. Banks, you do not have clearance to reposition a goddamn United States Spy Satellite.”

  “No, sir.”

  Timmons cocked his jaw. Locked and loaded, his tongue was about to lash out at her. “How long have you been tracking them?”

  Hedging was not something you did with an Admiral. “Every day. They’ve been stagnant in this town for a week.”

  “How did you find them? We didn’t even know where they were.”

  Shit. “I tagged them, sir.”

  “What?” he blasted at her. “You bugged them?”

  “I—yes.” She turned to Captain Redding. “The NCIS team didn’t find all the bugs in their uniforms. The ones they keep here in their lockers weren’t checked. The only one that wasn’t mine was the one in my purse. That one must belong to the Shark. Mine are for SAT tracking only. The frequency is very high, and hard to detect unless you have the right equipment.” Oh God, she was so fired. “They can read body vitals without having to be in the body, just next to it.”

  “I see six. You know that’s Cobbs for sure?” The Admiral asked, not dwelling on her admission.

  “Yes, sir, I assigned the numbers myself.”

  “Can you tell if they’ve got the Royal?”

  “Royal, sir?”

  “They were sent in to retrieve a woman who’s part of the Egyptian monarchy. She’s a hard-liner, and through the back door has a decisive hand in the Egyptian government. A Syrian group has been holding her, looking for information she possesses. The squad was sent to retrieve her, but we started with a three-hundred kilometer radius. They’ve been working for the last two months gathering intel and narrowing down the circle. Master Chief Briggs reported that Captain Austen had her in his protection. I trust he still does. Which one is he?” he asked, his eyes roving over the dots.

  “This one,” she said and then pulled her finger away from the screen. The signal was weakening.

  “Something wrong?” the Admiral asked.

  “I don’t…he’s not moving, his vitals are getting weaker…his pulse is slow, blood pressure is decreasing.” She pointed at the small box in the upper right corner of the screen showing his vitals.

  “Is he dying?”

  She shook her head, but it was to reject the idea. “There’s no change in his position.”

  “Where’s Mace, Kayla? Has he made it to Germany yet?” Nina stood amongst the men looking pale and trying hard to remain professional.

  Kayla glanced at the admiral and he nodded. She swung the satellite toward Germany and located Mace’s tag. It was moving, but slowing down. “The plane’s landing in Berlin.” The tag had an ominous slow, pale blue throb. Her eyes shot to his vitals. They were barely there. “Please Mace, hold on. You’re almost there,” she whispered.

  She heard Nina choke back a sob. “Sir, Captain Redding?”

  “Yes, Nina.” He looked older in that second than she could remember. “I know I just started, but could I request five days leave?”

  Redding cocked a white brow at her, but nodded once.

  “Ms. Banks,” Admiral Timmons said sternly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Monitor the signals of the rest of the team. We have a squad close by, we’ll send them in to retrieve them. I want you to give them the updated coordinates. When the Alpha squad is back on safe soil, we will be having a discussion. Am I clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Before reaching the anteroom the Admiral stopped and spun on his heel. “Ms. Banks.”

  Uhhh shit. Guess he wasn’t an Admiral by default.

  “Where did you learn to do this?”

  She scanned the group.

  “Kayla did this all the time at home,” Barry piped up.

  Oh, sweet Barry, he was going to take the fall for her. What a bud.

  “All the time? Are you saying Canada knows exactly where our spy
satellites are pointed?”

  Now they were in a squeeze. They had all signed a “rat-trapped-in-the-corner” agreement before they came to San Diego, explicitly defining what they could divulge from their previous jobs—pretty much zip.

  “Kayla broke all the satellite codes,” Barry admitted.

  “All?” the Admiral said, turning a narrowed look on him.

  “Yes, sir, every country that has one.”

  “Can they do it now, without her?”

  She and Barry shared a look. “Not sure.”

  “Obviously we have more to discuss, Ms. Banks.”

  Was that the smell of cheese in the air? And her job threaded to the other end. “Yes, sir.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Kayla walked the long corridors of the hospital. She knew a little German, and picked up on snippets of conversation as she passed by. Nina and she had already parted company, Nina heading straight for Mace. She followed Fox’s directions to the tenth floor. Thane had been moved from the ICU ward while she was in flight.

  “Excuse me.” The nurse looked up. “I’m looking for Captain Thane Austen’s room.”

  The nurse spoke good English, but with a heavy accent. “Ten oh two. Are you family?”

  She didn’t know how to answer. “She definitely is,” Kayla said, touching her swelling stomach. It wasn’t obvious yet with the loose shirts she wore hiding the bump, but there was definitely a big bump, and soon no shirt would hide it.

  The nurse smiled. “He’s in and out of consciousness due to the pain medication. You can go in for a vile, but I vud suggest that the princess leaf.”

  “Princess?”

  “Demanding voman, she’s some Egyptian monarch, but she’s a pain in the ass if you vant the truth.”

  “How bad are his injuries? Are they serious, he was in ICU?”

  “He’ll recover, dear. Those military types are tough. The bullets ver extracted. Only two did serious damage, but it vill be enough to keep him out of trouble for a vile.” The nurse gave her a sympathetic smile. “He’s had four blood transfusions, but vee have stabilized him, and vith time to heal, he vill be strong as he looks.”