I fight the urge to turn around and look at her, no matter how comforting the act might be right now.
Rhys narrows his eyes in thought. “And you have no idea what they wanted those files for?” he asks me.
“No, sir,” I say. “They could be for some kind of recruitment, but I can’t be sure. It’s what I’ve been trying to find out since I got here.” He goes silent again and scratches at his fuzzy face. “I’m telling you the truth. I have no reason to make this up and you know it.”
“Oh, I have no doubts you’re telling the truth, kid,” he says. “That’s not what’s bothering me.”
I furrow my brow as Rhys stands up and rounds the table.
“I’ve suspected for a while now that someone over our heads was… a little less than truthful,” he says. He waves me over as he rolls out a map of Afghanistan across the table. “The warehouse you found is here,” he points at the map. “Now, a few weeks before we picked you up, we tailed another convoy to a compound about fifteen miles south of camp. We called it in and command told us to forget about it.”
“Just like they said to forget about this one?”
He nods. “This has happened about a half-dozen times in the last year. Same story, different location. We track them down, command tells us to back off for no apparent reason.”
“You think someone up top knows who they are and what they’re doing?”
“I wasn’t sure until just now.”
“So, what do we do about it?” Fox asks.
I look over my shoulder, drawn by his steady voice. He stands behind me, tall and confident. I’m thankful to see trust in his eyes, the same trust I see in Caleb. Since the moment I arrived here, Fox has had my back more than anyone.
I won’t forget that.
“Well…” Rhys stands up tall. “We can call it in and wait for them to shoot us down again or we can just say fuck it and deal with the slap on the wrist later.”
A flowery scent teases my nose and I know that the new boots behind me are Caleb’s. I glance behind me to see that Rogers and West aren’t sitting anymore either.
“I don’t want anyone getting slapped for this but me,” I say.
Rhys chuckles. “Where’s the fun in that, kid? Everybody suit up. Let’s find out what these bastards are up to.”
I sigh as the four of them spin around and march out of the command tent one-by-one. Caleb lingers behind with me.
When I finally glance up, she’s smiling.
“What?” I ask, my stomach growling with dread.
“You look about ready to hurl,” she says.
“I might.”
“Well, keep it together,” she says. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about.”
Being friends with Caleb Fawn is a lot harder than I thought it’d be. Suddenly, every threat is far scarier than it should be. Every potential bug in the code is a virus just waiting to wipe out everything of value. Everything that means something to me.
Caleb nudges my shoulder. “We know what we’re doing, Box,” she assures me.
I nod, losing any drive I have to argue with it, but the black tar taking hold of my gut remains.
* * *
I balance my laptop in the sand and scan the radar for anything that could be a potential threat. Fox lies prone next to me with one eye pressed against his scope, looking far more tense than usual.
“I see two inside,” he mutters into the radio. “They’re sitting at a table. Looks like they’re waiting on something.”
“Copy that,” Rhys whispers back.
I pick up the binoculars, flicking on the night vision to get a better view of the black warehouse in the distance. Caleb jumped at the chance to join Rhys, West, and Rogers in surrounding the warehouse and I’ve been a fucking wreck ever since. Even the usual shut up and stay here wasn’t enough to calm me down. I see her now, her petite figure standing out among the tall, muscled forms of the others.
I didn’t hurl before we came out here but I sure as hell might now.
“Hey, Boxcar.”
I jolt slightly at Fox’s voice. “What?”
“Don’t give up.”
“On what?”
“On her,” he says, still focusing through his scope.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He peeks out at me, his brown eyes calling bullshit. “Take it from me, man. There aren’t a lot of things I believe in anymore… but I believe in you guys.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because what’s the fucking point otherwise? The world binds us to certain people. Most are bad but some are pretty good. I highly doubt the two of you just stumbled onto each other out of coincidence but even if you did, you can’t waste it.” He pauses. “Not like I did.”
I stare ahead into the black desert. “You make it sound easy.”
“Don’t make it difficult. She’ll do that enough for both of you.”
“That’s probably true.”
Fox clicks on his radio. “Fall back, Serg. They hear you.”
I raise the binoculars as panic strains my chest. Two blurry figures pass by the warehouse windows from the inside, one larger and balder than the other and my blood runs cold.
“It’s them…”
I search for Caleb, but I’ve lost her. Rhys and West stand around the front side, pressed hard against the wall to avoid detection. I can’t find Caleb or Rogers anywhere.
“Where is she?” I ask.
“She went around the back,” Fox answers, readying his radio again. “Caleb, they’re heading in your direction. Get out of sight now—”
A single bullet fires.
“Fox—” Caleb’s voice cuts off.
“Man down!” Rhys says. “Fitzpatrick, we’re going in. If you get a shot, take it.”
My heart stops.
“Who’s down?” I ask. “Fox, who’s down?!”
“I don’t know,” he says.
Another wave of gunshots spills out, flooding the air with a popping echo. I freeze in the sand, ready to bury my head in it, but I can’t stop staring at the warehouse.
Caleb.
She’s in there. I can’t do a fucking thing from back here.
I push up off the sand and start running.
“Boxcar, stop!”
I ignore Fox’s warning, forcing one foot in front of the other. Regret builds with each step, but I swallow it down between heaving breaths. The warehouse draws closer every second but each one that passes could mean a bullet through Caleb’s perfect green eyes.
Finally, I charge through the front door and my nose twitches with the scent of blood.
Rhys. West. Rogers. Each of them lies on the floor, face down and still, with a pool of red flowing out of their heads. I slink back as a wave of nausea hits my gut.
“Holy shit!”
A giant hand slaps my shoulder. His voice echoes in my memories, that same barking drawl that bossed me around for days.
“It’s you!”
I look up into the hard, black eyes of the bald man and cringe. For a second, I wonder if it’s a good thing that he looks happy to see me but then I realize that it just means he gets to tie up a loose end.
“Boxcar…”
Caleb’s whimper breaks my heart even more. She sits in the chair at the table with her fingers weaved together behind her head and for a moment, I breathe easier. Then, I notice the bearded man with his gun pressed against her head and it all melts away.
“Please, don’t hurt her,” I say.
The bald man forces me into the chair beside her. She stares back at me with a blood-splattered face, her eyes drifting behind my head as I feel the hard, metal tip of a gun push against my skull.
“The Boss will be delighted to know we found you,” the bald man says. He pulls back the hammer beside my ear and I flinch. “Don’t worry about the lady. We won’t kill her… yet.”
The bearded man’s laughter cuts short and
his body crumbles to the floor behind Caleb’s chair.
“What the fuck—”
More blood strikes Caleb’s face. I spin around in time to see the bald man’s eyes roll back into his head before he joins his friend on the floor. My jaw drops at the dark red dots in the center of each of their foreheads.
Fox fucking Fitzpatrick.
I heave a nauseous breath, full of happy relief, and turn to look at Caleb.
Her palm crashes into my face.
“Ow!” Pain fires down my neck as she climbs to her feet. “What—!”
“What the hell were you thinking?!” she shouts. “Running in here like that. Are you insane?”
I stand up and she shoves me backward. “I did it to help you!”
“This isn’t a game, Boxcar!” She pushes me again and I grab her wrists as my back touches the wall. “You could have been killed but you still ran in here…”
“Of course, I did.”
“Why?!”
There are a million different things I could say to answer her but there’s only one thing I want to do that will tell her everything. I hold her face, smearing the blood on her cheeks, and crush my lips against hers with a firm kiss. Her resolve shifts in my direction and she kisses me back, gripping my waist to push me against the wall.
We break away, each of us taking deep breaths to calm ourselves as our lips brush together. My fingers tingle from the heat rising off her face, blending with mine.
“I’d do it again,” I whisper, laying my forehead against hers.
She looks at me with more fear in her eyes than I’ve ever seen. They close and she shakes her head as she turns away from me.
Fox steps in from outside. He exhales at the display of red-covered bodies. “You guys okay?” he asks, calm and steady.
“Yeah,” Caleb says quickly.
He looks at me, sensing the tension between us, but I nod in agreement.
I lean back against the wall again as blood’s stench invades my senses. It brings me back to that moment in the warehouse when I watched these same men murder two other innocents before pointing their guns at me. That same metallic smell. I’d be covered with it already if it weren’t for Caleb and Fox. It’s best not to think about it, I suppose. I’m still here. I’m still breathing.
And so is she.
“We’ll take our men back with us,” Caleb says, gesturing at Fox to help her. “Grab his legs.”
He lays his gun down and walks over to Rhys’ corpse. Caleb scoops her hands beneath his shoulders and the two of them raise him off the floor as if he weighed nothing at all. As if he wasn’t living and breathing just five minutes ago. I bet he’s even still warm.
This is all my fault.
“Boxcar.”
Fox lays a hand on my shoulder. I blink out of it, realizing that they’ve already carried Rhys and West outside into the jeep.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“You in there?”
I clear my throat and exhale the stench out of my lungs. “Yeah.”
“I need you to look around,” he tells me. “See if you can find anything that’ll tell us what they were doing out here. Can you do that?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
He drops his hand and steps away.
“Fox, I’m sorry.” I look to the floor at our dead enemies and the pool of blood flowing beneath each of them — struck down by Fox’s bullets. “That… can’t be easy.”
Fox looks at their bodies. “It never is,” he says, “but you two are still here. That’s something.”
There’s a slight tremble in his tone but it’s not enough to bleed into his optimism. Honestly, I’m not sure how he’s managed not to break, given everything he’s been through. I push off the wall, clinging to what remains of my strength.
I get to work while Fox and Caleb gather Rogers off the floor.
There’s not much to look through. Not even a document or a note. A computer would be nice. Whatever they were doing out here, they made damn sure they weren’t going to leave a trail.
I pause above their bodies. The obvious place to look would be their pockets but the idea of rummaging through a dead man’s clothing gives me the chills. Still, I fight through the feeling and kneel to check them.
Over a dozen pockets between them and not one damn wallet. No identification. No notepad. Nothing.
I sit back in disappointment, ready to abandon them completely, but a bit of ink catches my eye just above the bald man’s navel.
I lift his shirt a little higher, revealing the coiling tail of a cobra etched into his skin. Thin, black eyes stare back at me from between his pecs.
A memory triggers in my brain, fueled by deja vu.
This snake. I’ve seen it before but not inked into someone’s skin. It was…
I sat at Marilyn Black’s table with a cup of cold tea in front of me. She drilled me with questions for hours. She wore a silver pendant around her neck. I never thought a second thing of it until just now.
It was a cobra. Just like this tattoo.
I step over to the bearded man and pull up his shirt, too.
The same black eyes stare back at me from his abs.
“Box, it’s time to go,” Fox says from the doorway.
“What about them?” I ask.
“Leave them.”
I hesitate but I force myself to stand up and follow Fox outside into the jeep.
Matching tattoos are usually reserved for two groups of people: drunk college girls and criminal organizations. There can’t be too many that use this cobra to mark their members.
Coincidence? Or another piece of the puzzle?
Chapter 20
Boxcar
A large truck is already parked by the command tent by the time we reach camp.
Caleb called ahead to give them a head’s up, but there’s no way the upper command could have sent someone out to replace Rhys so quickly.
The three of us step inside the command tent to find a tall man standing at the head of the table with at least five other mystery men lingering behind him. All of them are tall with dark features and wear recently pressed BDUs. Frowning faces all around except for the tall man. He grins wider as he sees us, the edges of his wrinkled smile hidden beneath a salt and pepper mustache.
“You must be Fitzpatrick!” he says, zooming in on Fox. He steps around the table and thrusts his hand forward, snatching up Fox’s before he can even react.
“Yes, sir…”
“From what I hear, you’re quite the shot. I look forward to working with you,” he says. He scans the rest of the new men seated around. “I’m Sergeant Paxton. I’m taking over this camp starting now, and you’ll be joining my squad. Welcome aboard.”
Fox opens his mouth to argue but Paxton talks over him, pointing a hard finger at Caleb.
“Fawn, right?” he asks, spinning back to a stack of paperwork. He slides a file out and opens it, smiling. “Caleb?”
“Yes, sir,” she says.
“You’re going home in the morning.”
Caleb goes stiff. “Sir—”
“I understand the mix-up, but you’re not allowed out here. Should have been shipped back the second your boots hit the ground.”
“Sir, I’m a valuable member of this team—”
“Not anymore.”
“I ask you to reconsider, sir.”
“And I ask you to know your place.”
She falls silent, crushed and vulnerable, and it pisses me off.
“Sir.” Fox steps forward. “I can vouch for Fawn. She has a right to be here.”
“The decision has already been made. And you.” Paxton shifts over to me and stares with black eyes. “Who the hell are you?”
I throw on my best, shit-eating grin. “I’m Boxcar.”
His lips twitch. “Boxcar?”
“Yep.”
“And just what do you do here, Boxcar?”
I look at Caleb. Her head is down, her eyes just barely open to hide her s
adness.
This fucking guy.
“I’m a civilian intelligence freelancer,” I answer.
He laughs hard. “What the hell is that?”
“I monitor security.”
“Is that all?”
“I also run and maintain the satellite system surrounding this camp for twenty miles, which means nothing drifts in and out of that radius without me knowing about it — including the truck that transported you and your boys here tonight.”
“Is that right?”
“You entered that radius at about seven-fifteen,” I point out. “Made it here in record time.”
“Well, the loss of a leader like Rhys hits an operation like this fairly hard,” he says. “I came out here the second I heard from camp.”
“Except that Caleb didn’t make that call until seven-eighteen.” His amusement drains from his wrinkled face. “You were already on your way here by then.”
Paxton blinks once and leans in closer, using every inch he has on me to his intimidating advantage. “You’re out of here,” he whispers. “I don’t need civilian intelligence freelancers clogging up my camp.”
“Or monitoring your calls, right?”
“Boxcar…” Fox warns softly.
“Get out of this tent.” Paxton spins around and fires another look at Caleb. “Both of you. Fitzpatrick, you stay here and brief me on what happened out there tonight.”
Caleb immediately turns and steps outside, but I linger behind, drawing close to Fox’s ear.
“Watch your back,” I whisper.
He flexes his jaw and gives me a subtle nod as I pass by him.
“Caleb!” I pick up my pace to catch up with her. She doesn’t turn around and keeps her quick stride toward the barracks. “Hold on…”
“Not now, Boxcar.”
“Wait, wait—” I slip my fingers around her elbow, but she quickly tugs free. “Caleb, stop.”
I swing in front of her to block her.
“What do you want?” she asks.
Her eyes stay low like a cowering animal, outright refusing to look at me, and I bleed inside. There’s nothing I want more than to hold her right now but the spiked armor she’s got on won’t make that easy.
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