I had one question. Where the hell were their men? I’d left a little over an hour ago after the girls had set their sights on me.
Even though Mancini had the place well surrounded and enough security to protect The Hague, I figured it couldn’t hurt to give the place a walk through.
My whole family was here and since my brothers tend to lose their minds when they get caught up with their women, it was up to me to watch their six.
I stood in the tree line for another few seconds trying to figure out what the hell I had just seen, but unless they’d all plotted to off their men in some kinda fucked up scheme, there was some other shady shit going on.
I went to Lo’s place first. All the cottages looked alike but his was easy to find. It was the one in the most strategic location.
If an enemy was able to breech the perimeter they’d have to get through him first. That’s just Lo. No matter that he now had a woman and a baby on the way. He still won’t put his safety before ours.
I could try convincing him that since I was the only one who didn’t have a family to look out for I should be the one taking that position, but I knew that argument would only fall on deaf ears.
We’ll all be seventy and Lo would still be standing between us, and danger. It’s in his blood. He came to the door wiping sleep from his eyes and looking back into the room over his shoulder.
No doubt he was wondering where his woman had got to. “The women are up to something.” He came fully awake and reached down for his shoes that were right inside the door.
“Where are the others?”
“I’m guessing the same place you were.”
“Fuck, what now?” He slammed the door behind him and we headed to Con’s place next door.
We went door to door rousing the others who all had the same reaction before we headed to the mansion.
We passed the kids running around on the lawn with a battalion of security guards standing watch over them.
Little Zak was having the time of her life with all these new kids to play with and it only brought home the reality of her existence the last few months.
She’d been locked away like the rest of us, her freedom restricted the way no child’s should ever be.
It was for her as much as the rest of us that I wanted this shit over and done with. I want her childhood and all my future nieces and nephews to have the sort of childhood I’d enjoyed before my parents were taken from me.
I shied away from thoughts of my parents and that life that was long gone and focused on the here and now, and what new fuckery my sisters were into.
All the men were wide-awake now. “Where’s Lyon?” Law yawned and scratched his gut before shaking his head and opening the back door.
Since we didn’t know what the hell they were up to we decided to pull a sneak attack. Mancini met us coming down the back stairs with a finger to his lips.
“I’ll get Lyon.” He motioned for us to follow him and we headed up the stairs and to the other side of the house still no wiser to what the hell was going on.
He knocked lightly on the door before pushing it open. Lyon sat up gun in hand and we all stepped out of the line of fire.
‘The fuck is this an invasion?” He looked at the spot next to him and then around the room. “Where the fuck is my wife?”
“Get dressed and come with us. The women are congregating in my media room. It doesn’t look good for us.” Mancini answered him.
“Fucking Kat.” Just then the baby started fussing in the other room and he got off the bed with the sheet wrapped around him.
Mancini closed the door and we waited until Lyon came out of the room with the baby on his chest. “Okay, I gotta get him settled or he’ll scream this shit down.”
He passed Ty a bottle and sent him on a mission to heat it up. “That doesn’t leave your sight. Forty-five seconds in the nuker. Okay where the fuck we going?”
He addressed this last to Mancini after Ty left on his errand. “We have to wait for him, he’ll never find us.”
“Ten guesses what they’re up to.” Con shook his head and said what the rest of us were thinking. “What’re we gonna do?” Zak seemed stumped, maybe because he’d been woken out of a deep sleep.
“You don’t know that they’re up to anything, maybe they’re discussing wedding plans or some shit.”
“Cord not even you believe that shit.” I laughed and slapped him on the back.
“Dammit, I told Susie to stay out of it.”
Well shit! All we need is for him to go all caveman and derail our reason for being here. Thankfully Ty was back in five and he got distracted.
We followed Mancini back to his side of the house and into a room that took two doors and codes pressed into three separate keypads to get into.
The place looked like a space station. There were monitors and screens covering the walls and the windows were blacked out.
“Damn Mancini. This is a serious FOB you got here.” From the surroundings I’d just cased, the strategic location of the buildings on the property and now this. Fucker even got aircraft back there in the woods.
I’d never seen a setup like this outside the military but could see my brothers and I doing something like it.
It would take a lot of money, but to be this self- sufficient would be well worth it. Not to mention the way shit’s going we just might need it.
“This place makes our little compound look like a kindergarten playground doesn’t it?” I whispered to Quinn as the others took in our surroundings.
The only one not impressed was Lyon who was busy playing daddy. The kid had his legs wrapped around his dad’s arm as if to hold him in place and was going to town on that bottle.
“Mancini, what the fuck are you?” Zak asked the question I think all of us were thinking. As expected he just smirked and took a seat behind the command station.
He pressed some buttons on the computer on his desk and the screens came alive. The women were spread out in the media room.
At first glance it looked like I’d jumped the gun. They had the TV on and it looked like they were watching some kinda wedding planning show.
There were trays of snacks and each woman had what looked like the smallest teacup I’ve ever seen in their hands.
I was about to apologize for ringing the alarm and telling myself I was off because of the shit that had gone down last night, but then he hit the volume.
“So, we don’t have much time. If I know Colton he’s gonna roll over any second and find me gone.” “So, what’s he gonna do? We’re just planning a wedding.” That was Kelly, but already I could tell she was being sarcastic.
“Yes, we are, but you don’t understand, these men are suspicious by nature. I know Logan is.”
“Sheesh, you think your guys are bad. If someone even smiles at me it takes me the whole rest of the day to calm Justice down.”
“And by someone I mean anything male. If his suspicions were true, I’d know half the men in our state. He doesn’t seem to get the concept that some people just smile and it doesn’t mean they want to take you to bed.”
Creed flexed his jaw at his woman’s words, his eyes dead on the screen. The women all had something to say about their over protective men.
Kat Lyon looked around the room almost as if she could sense her husband’s eyes on her. It was like watching a comedy skit.
“I still say we should’ve done this outside. I don’t trust Hank worth shit. I’m pretty sure he has this whole place bugged. You wanna talk about paranoid.” Mancini’s woman did some looking around of her own.
“Now why would my sweet wife think such a thing about her adoring husband?” Maybe because she knows you? I thought it but didn’t say it as Lyon’s wife’s voice came through the speaker.
“Oh no, we can’t risk that. Catalina would snoop and then she’d tell her daddy everything word for damn word. I think he bribes her. Nope this is the safest place. Besides, if you ladies did what I told yo
u, they should be out for a while. It’s just Colton…ugh!”
“What about your husband?” Vanessa took a sip from her cup. “He’s…different. My little trick doesn’t always work on him and that nut takes suspicion to a whole new level, so let’s get this started before he wakes up.”
“So what is it they did to you lot to put you out for a while?” I looked around at the others in the room with the most innocent expression on my face.
I had to cover my mouth with my hand when they all got twitchy. “Laugh now brother, but your time is fast approaching.” Lo grumbled at me.
“Seriously? Why are y’all so intimidated by those men? What are they gonna do? Like, we’re grown women.” That was Kelly again, the newest addition. Poor thing. I had no doubt the others would soon school her.
“Oh you poor sweet delusional thing. These men are nuts. If we get caught meddling we’ll be lucky if they don’t lock us in a room for the duration.”
“Ah come on Danielle, Quinn’s a big old teddy bear. I think he’s sweet on me.” Quinn took a lot of ribbing over that one and the red flush on his face was damn comical. I’m gonna enjoy this shit.
“And besides, we just met, he doesn’t have any control over me.”
“Quinn!” Lo’s voice stopped him halfway to the door.
“Damn bitch made, you’re so easily baited.” Ty was talking shit because his girl was the only one actually looking through a bridal magazine and sipping tea.
“I know whatever we’re here to do we better make it quick. I am not in the mood for one of Tyler’s tantrums. I wanna enjoy the beach before he takes away any more of my privileges.”
That started a debate among all the women as they compared their men’s tactics. I looked at my brothers and the others in the room and felt pity for them.
“Damn you boys are so fucked.” I turned back to the screen when Lyon’s woman once again called the meeting to order.
Mancini’s woman looked like she was taking notes as each woman went around the room giving what little bit of information she’d gathered from listening into her husband’s conversations.
“Damn, they know a lot.”
“I tried to tell you.” I looked at Lo who looked like he was taking mental notes himself.
“Ok so Kelly, you were the closest of any of us to this mess. What did you hear?”
“Well, like I already told you ladies, I was snatched and held at a place not far from the compound.”
Our girls looked at each other and nodded for her to carry on. “My dad’s a SEAL, well he used to be active, now he’s an admiral so he’s more administrative.”
“Anyway I get the feeling that whatever this is, it has to do with his team from back in the day, which involved the CO.”
“I know a little bit about him but of course dad never got into too much detail, but I heard those men talking. They’re working off of some list. All the girls that were taken were the daughters of military men.”
“Daughters? Oh shit…that meeting at Law’s place last year. Dana, Melissa any of you know what that was about?”
“Same thing, the only one missing was Mancini.” Dana Sue answered Kat Lyon.
“I think he met them in the winter. It was the holidays in fact. We’d just got home that night I think and he told me he had to make a run. It was after he came back that he started working on something, I bet it was this.”
“Kelly you said they were working off a list what list? And what about daughters? Colton was never in the military.” She sounded panicked, like someone who’d just figured out something they wish they hadn’t.
“I’m not sure what Colt’s part in all this is Katarina, but when those guys were stupidly talking within earshot, I could’ve sworn I heard them say their next stop is Cali.”
“Shit anyone on the old man’s list out there? Mancini do you mind?” Lo went to the computer and since the unit was obviously secure just typed in some code.
The rest of us watched the screen as the names we’d decoded the day before came up and a background search begun.
The women carried on their conversation, Mancini’s wife promising to put in a call to someone she knew to see if she could get any information and the others trying to piece shit together. Pretty much the way we do.
“There he is. He lives in the Hollywood hills.” “Served with the CO damn, all the way back.” “Doesn’t say here that he has a daughter though, he has a son.”
“What the fuck? It says the kid works for DOD, that can’t be right. He’s like seventeen, eighteen.”
“Give me a minute boys.” Mancini moved Con and Lo out of the way and did some fast finger moving shit on his computer.
“Damn, I shouldn’t be seeing this.” Lo’s actions belied his words since he didn’t look away from the screen. It looked like we were looking at top- secret documents, and he was right. We shouldn’t be seeing this.
“Damn, the kid’s a hacker.” Law looked over Mancini’s shoulder as the rest of us gathered around for a better look.
“Not just any hacker, he’s part of Anonymous.” Mancini made that announcement.
“Whoa, what the fuck? Is he the one they’re after?”
“What or who the fuck is Anonymous?”
“Uh, short version Lyon, an international group of highly skilled hackers. And this little gem right here is the fucker that hacked NASA and the DOD.” Mancini tapped his finger against the screen.
“The fucker did it in less then five minutes.” Every military man in the room whistled because we knew to a man the type of skill something like that would take.
Mancini on the other hand had a very telling smile on his face. No doubt he was thinking of recruiting the little shit.
“What’s his name?” Con asked and Mancini scrolled down the screen
“Track!”
“Oh the irony.” Even I had to give the kid his props.
Since the women were still brainstorming and it looked like we’d learned everything they had which wasn’t much, except for Kelly’s little bombshell, it was our turn to do a little digging of our own.
26
Quinn
Not even a full day yet and already she’d joined ranks with the women. I didn’t know if to be pleased about that or pissed that she thought I had no say in what she did.
I’m happy that Lo had stopped me just now though because who knows what I would’ve done or said if I’d gone down there in a huff.
My brothers were still going on about the kid and trying to figure out where he fit in. So far these boys had gone after daughters, or were they just choosing any kid as long as they belonged to one of the CO’s old team?
Lyon was looking quiet and contemplative which is not necessarily a good thing coming from that quarter, but at least he had the baby in his arms.
“Quinn since you’ve got point why don’t you bring these boys up to speed on what we have so far?” “Sure thing Lo.”
All eyes turned my way and Mancini turned down the volume so the women’s voices were mere drones in the background.
I went through everything we had so far including what we’d found in the CO’s little surprise book and the names we’d found there.
It was a testament to how much we trusted them that we were willing to share what could be classified information. But I had no doubt that nothing we said would leave the room.
Plus it was good to have new eyes since the seven of us were so close to the situation. It might loosen something up that we’d missed.
We spent the next hour throwing around ideas, the only common consensus being that we had to go to Cali and grab this kid before those assholes got to him first.
“Where the fuck is Davey?” I’d only just noticed that he wasn’t in the room.
“Probably sniffing around my kid. I hope his ass can fly cause I will throw him off that cliff out there.”
“Chill Lyon, he’s not that kinda kid.”
“Dude, I’m pretty sure he’s
what, eighteen, nineteen? They’re all that kinda kid. The only reason I haven’t put the fear of hell in his ass is because my girl is already gone over some asshole kid back home.”
This guy at some point is going to have to get some kind of medical attention for his psychosis; but that’s for another time.
“I think we better keep an eye on him too.” My brothers knew what I was talking about but we hadn’t shared our suspicions that the old man might be his dad with the others yet.
“So it’s settled we’re going after this kid.”
“Yep, I say we leave tonight. How far are we from location Mancini?”
“About six hours we can make it in three and a half, four.”
“Okay we need to get eyes on that house.”
“No problem.” He pulled up the home on a wall screen and put in some shit on the computer that took us to the front door.”
“What the fuck is that?”
“I would think you’d know. The military has been playing around with this little toy for the better part of six months.”
It’s the first time I’d seen anything like it. It was like Google earth on steroids. You could actually see inside the house and its surroundings in real time, almost like you were there.
“Are we calling ahead Quinn?” I fielded Lo’s question and had to think about it. I shook my head as I worked it out.
“No, if they were heading to him that means they already know who he is and might have eyes on his place and who knows what else.”
“The first team has been disbanded so it might take them some time to coordinate, not sure what kinda setup Khalil has here. But either way we can’t risk it.”
“I say we go in at night, take the kid and head back here. Speaking of which I need to call this Thorpe guy, check in on the girls. Kelly would want to know that they’re doing ok.”
I didn’t give any thought to what her dad and his pals might’ve done to their prisoners, but I wouldn’t be surprised if bodies started washing up on the mainland in the next week or so.
“You make that call Quinn. In the meantime, what the hell are we going to do about these women?” The others turned back to the screen at Lo’s words while I moved off to the side to make the call.
SEAL Team Seven Books 6&7 Quinn and Devon Page 17