by Fiona Quinn
“Copy. Numbers traveling with us?” he repeated his question.
“Slim if you don’t count the girls’ teams. They left four seats for security personnel on the jet. The three of you and Rory. Media includes a pool journo and a photographer. We’ll get those names nailed down and backgrounds run. Then the senator and one support staff. Compared to where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing, this’ll be a vacation. The primary is your only concern.”
“This isn’t what G Squadron Echo normally does.”
“The senator asked for you specifically, T-Rex,” Burnside said.
Okay, that was number three on the list of reasons Echo was tapped for this VIP protection task: recent training, languages, and the principal’s finger pointed his way.
Me? Specifically? How in the heck would Senator Blankenship even know I exist?
Chapter Four
T-Rex
Monday, Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti Africa
Hurry up and wait. It was a military truism. A way of life. Bursts of adrenaline followed by long stretches of…crickets.
It worked in T-Rex’s favor this time.
D-Day landed the heli at the right place and the right time for the three men tapped for the Blankenship assignment to jump and run.
But their transport aircraft was still fueling.
T-Rex, Havoc, and Ty beelined for the showers.
Their logistics specialist, Carlotta Hill, had three rubber bins waiting for them. She must have rifled through their personal gear to grab their shower kits and a change of clothes. “It’s too long a flight to be caked in mud,” she said, handing the top bin off to Havoc.
“Amen to that.” Havoc accepted his bin and jogged the few steps to the showers.
Ty, juggling Rory’s lead, accepted his bin that had equipment for cleaning Rory up, too.
T-Rex didn’t mind the intrusion into his personal space. He was appreciative, in fact, that he wouldn’t have to claw around in his pack. Clay was almost impossible to get out of anything, T-Rex had discovered in his two decades of military life.
Carlotta Hill was a competent logician. Lotti was her nickname heading into her military career, which was changed to “Lottery” in boot camp. Then she was quickly re-labeled “Winner” when her fellow boots discovered she had strategic skills that put her team at the top of the scoreboard.
Those skills had played well for Delta Force Team Echo.
With his rubber bin balanced on his palm, and a first-aid kit dangling from his other hand, T-Rex headed to the showers hoping he’d find an open stall.
“I had Private Mason in there saving you all spots,” Winner called after T-Rex.
T-Rex raised his arm as way of acknowledging and thanking Winner. That was the kind of attention to detail that was expected at Special Forces Tier One level.
Seamless action.
Emerging from the showers, changed into gym shorts, T-shirts, and shower Crocs, the men would rest much better on the long-haul flight from Africa to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and a rental car over to D.C. to meet with their primary, Senator Blankenship.
Nitro’s wife, Laurel, was packing bags for the three bachelor operators and driving them up from Fort Bragg. This wasn’t her first time stepping in with an assist, and most likely, it wouldn’t be the last.
Sometimes, it takes a village, T-Rex mused. Speaking of which… He strode toward the transport plane to thank D-Day.
Making his way to D-Day, T-Rex spotted Ty out in the field by the runway, throwing a ball under the stadium lights that turned the area from night into day. Ty would try to wear Rory out before they got on the plane. When Ty took his Ambien, he’d also medicate Rory.
Twenty hours was a long time for Rory to be confined to his crate. He’d usually let everyone know, vociferously and constantly, that he found his confinement unacceptable.
D-Day stood there, with hands on hips, watching the Malinois sailing fifteen feet into the air to catch his ball, then hightail it back to Ty so Ty could throw it again.
Havoc and Nick of Time each balanced a foot on a storage box as T-Rex arrived beside them.
All three of the operators heading home had tended their open injuries. White taped gauze covered their newly cleaned wounds. Each had popped a prophylactic dose of antibiotic. Who knew what microbes were multiplying in that primordial soup they’d slogged through on the way to their exfil? It wouldn’t do to be a walking biohazard around the senator.
T-Rex held out his hand to shake with D-Day and Nick of Time.
“Another successful mission on the books,” she said. “Glad you had time for a rinse. You all smelled like something that crawled out of the swamp,” she said. “It’s going to take some doing to get that stench out of my bird.”
T-Rex offered a nod, stroking a hand over his still damp beard. His brown hair hung down to his shoulders, ending in curly waves. He’d have to make sure that he and Havoc got to a barber as soon as they deplaned.
Ty had just come off an assignment that required him to be spiffed up, so he was good to go with his western-style grooming.
“Good to see you whole and healthy.” D-Day stepped onto a box, so the two were eye to eye. She was a tiny little thing to have such titanium-plated balls.
“Good to see your time off for honeymooning didn’t affect your flying skills,” he replied.
D-day flashed a smile.
“Ty told me your wedding was a blast.” Havoc snorted, then ducked as D-Day feigned a swipe.
“You can read a paper, can you?” D-day’s expression didn’t change.
It didn’t look like she was going to give that conversation any oxygen.
But they’d been filled in.
The low down: D-Day came from a billionaire family, the Davidsons. That was billions with a capital B. Money like that meant rules were considered for fools. They got what they wanted when they wanted it, no matter the morals or ethics.
D-Day’s mom had pulled her away from all that, and D-Day was antithetical to her family of origin. A complete 180.
Her dad, William Davidson, had been playing footsie with a terrorist that had been on Echo’s wish list for seven years, Omar Mohamed Imadi.
Tracking Omar, the CIA discovered two things: Omar’s American niece, Kira, had been college roommates with London Davidson and had introduced London to her Uncle Omar’s friend, William Davidson, in a May-December romance. Omar had been invited to the Davidson’s compound in Tanzania for a secret meeting. Kira would be there to see her friend London.
Echo had had to get into that compound, plan a way to capture Omar, and bring him to the CIA for interrogation.
The way in had been through Kira.
That mission had required that Ty get a spa makeover. He’d been assigned to work with the CIA to develop Kira as an asset. Getting behind those thirty-foot security walls by hell or high water was Ty’s directive.
Kira was an innocent in a den of thieves.
On assignment, Ty (and Rory, for that matter) had lost their hearts to sweet, intelligent, gentle Kira.
The mission was successful, Omar Mohamed Imadi was dispatched. But when a local guerrilla force showed up, Kira had nearly lost her life in the incident.
Spin forward a couple of days from that mission, and Kira was in Washington helping her friend, London, host a pre-wedding cocktail party for D-Day and her fiancé Gator. That cocktail party was “the blast” that Havoc was teasing D-Day about.
D-Day’s brother thought he could take out the family and clear his father’s last will and testament of extraneous names, hiding their murders behind a fake terrorist attack.
Lives were lost.
London was shot in the head and was comatose, last they’d been updated.
Ty had been in the room when the terrorists flooded in.
Maybe the bad guys didn’t do their due diligence. D-Day was marrying Gator Aid Rochambeau, a retired Marine Raider. He now worked for the world-renowned group Iniquus Security, sta
ffed by ex-special forces professionals. The golden boys with sterling reputations.
Gator’s teammates were all in that room. Ty joined their ranks to save their women.
Ty got Kira out safely.
Iniquus stomped the terrorists into the ground.
Since Ty was there, he was able to give Echo a blow by blow.
D-Day had left the building at the time of the attack to go pick up her in-laws. She and Gator missed the fireworks.
They married without further incident. Left for their honeymoon. And now D-Day was standing there, taking the ribbing that Havoc was offering up.
If you didn’t come from a military special forces family, Havoc’s joking might have seemed insensitive, but terror was part and parcel to their daily lives.
If you’re breathing, you push forward. That’s the only way this worked out okay.
That the terrorist attack was incited by D-Day’s family caused D-Day no end of grief. She got pulled in to revamp her clearance levels and to prove that she was estranged from her family. She nearly lost her position with the military. And she had fought and trained hard for over a decade, working her way up the male-dominated world of special forces to earn her place as a Night Stalker.
That a mere familial tie with someone, whom she hated and had shoved out of her life, threatened her work and aspirations was total crap.
Because Ty had fallen in love with Kira on that assignment, he, too, had to jump hoops to maintain his clearance. There was always the risk that he’d been compromised.
Not in T-Rex’s mind. But on paper.
This was why you don’t fall for your asset. You don’t fall for your principal. You just don’t fall.
Workspace was workspace, and personal space was…limited. Better to wait to find love once you’d retired from your post and no one had the right to scrutinize your relationship.
That was T-Rex’s philosophy, and he’d tried to make it Echo doctrine.
They didn’t need to lose a team member to a soft heart and hard choices.
Ty and Kira, D-Day and Gator were prime examples.
Ty looked up, caught D-Day’s gaze, and jogged over. A tip of the head. A question in his eyes. He wrapped an arm around D-Day’s waist and spun, then set her on the ground. “Welcome back to the wild west, Mrs. Rochambeau.”
“Yeah, I would have married most anyone to get rid of my family name.”
“I hear ya. But in the end, Gator’s a good guy.”
She batted a hand through the air. “Yeah, yeah, Gator did you a solid. Echo owes him. I’d still like to know what that’s all about.” She tipped her head.
“You’ll have to wait for the movie.” Havoc reached down to give Rory a scratch behind the ears.
D-Day balled her fingers into a fist and crossed her hands over her chest.
T-Rex could tell she was itching to pet Rory, too. But only Rory’s team could touch him. He wasn’t a pet.
D-day kicked Ty’s boot. “You grew your beard. Does Kira like it?”
Ty dipped his head by way of response.
“Is Kira still in the picture?” D-day asked, “or were we too much for her?”
Ty looked off at the horizon, where the first flames of a new day scratched at the sky. “We’re trying to get our sea legs. She’s been having issues with nightmares and panic attacks. She’s hooking up with doctor’s support. I’ll join in when I’m around.”
“Which isn’t much,” Nick said.
“Roger that. And Kira has to weigh that in with everything else…see if our relationship can handle the distance.”
T-Rex saw D-Day had touched a nerve on Ty.
She caught Ty’s gaze. “I’m sorry. I really am. Kira did a beautiful job planning that party. She’s a really kind person from what I saw. I hope she gets the help she needs. Sometimes I forget what I was like before I joined the Army. Civilian life. It’s a luxury to have avoided violence and pain. We learn to detach, but that’s a skillset.”
“Yeah, well, Nitro’s wife, Laurel, and the other Echo wives took her out and had a heart-to-heart with her.” Ty put a hand to his chest. “I asked them to. Like you were saying, I’ve been at this game my whole adult life. I can’t imagine it from the outside looking in like the other wives can. I wanted them to spell it out—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Marrying an operator isn’t for the faint of heart.” He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Wrong words. Marrying an operator isn’t for everyone. I want to bow out if I’m hurting her. She’s had it rough enough.”
D-day pulled a worried brow. “Are you giving up on her?”
“Me? No way. But I’m not pushing an agenda. We’re taking it slow. Right now, I just want her to be able to sleep.”
T-Rex listened with a master chief’s ear. He needed his number two squared away. Ty couldn’t be distracted by the doings back home. He needed to compartmentalize.
Home was home. Work was work.
Not the easiest of tasks to separate the two out.
Ty was right. In their chosen profession, you needed more than love in a spouse to make a go of it.
T-Rex had met Kira. She was soft-hearted, an innocent. On the Echo mission, where she was labeled an asset, she was front and center of an attack on their compound. Kira might have handled that okay, but she’d stepped from one terror attack into another within the same week, and that was hard on a civilian.
Unless you played in the world of war, you had no idea—none—about how to navigate the emotions.
Heck, back when his wife, Jess, was still alive and working a cop’s beat, she had had a hard time when violence was packed too closely back-to-back.
Jess had told him that she couldn't reach out for support because she was the only female on the force.
So she sucked it up. And that had created its own problems. For her. And for them.
Anxiety. Depression. Drinking.
T-Rex was never a hundred percent sure that when Jess showed up the night of the domestic dispute that took her life, that the guy wasn’t looking for death by cop—a form of suicide. And that maybe…just maybe, Jess liked the idea herself. Death by criminal. Lauded and remembered as a hero.
The question was there in the back of his head.
He’d never get his answers.
So when the idea showed up like it did now, he gently put it back in its box and put it on the shelf of unknowns.
“Gentlemen load up,” a voice bellowed.
“That’s us.” T-Rex was glad for a distraction. “D-day, your skills today were much appreciated.”
She pointed a finger at each of the three operators. “You stay safe.”
“Back at ya.”
The three-man team, along with K9 Rory, climbed on their ride home.
After their two-day mission with no shuteye, high temps, high humidity, and mosquito swarms, the cold air in the cargo hold felt like heaven.
The rumble of the engine noise was just what they needed to drown out the memory of the sounds of the screaming villagers, the bleating livestock, and the rebel rifle pops.
Echo claimed their space, hung their hammocks, popped their pills, and crashed hard.
Sleep was a requirement. It helped insulate the special operators from PTSD. It gave their bodies a chance to heal.
They needed to be at 100% over the next few days. While Echo was trained and ready to handle VIP security. It wasn’t an assignment that was a walk in the park.
Everything that possibly went sideways while they were protecting Senator Blankenship would reflect badly on The Unit.
T-Rex couldn’t let anything go wrong.
Chapter Five
Remi
Tuesday, Washington D.C.
Remi sat cross-legged on her living room floor in a pair of yoga pants and an oversized T-shirt. A towel wrapped the damp strands of her ebony hair in a turban. With her back pressed against her couch cushion, Remi made neat piles of notes beside her as she researched Senator Blankenship. Her goal was
to discover an angle for this “feel good” piece. What was Blankenship’s motivation for flying these girls home?
There had to be a get.
That’s the way it worked once you hit that level of power.
Always a get.
Remi was scrolling through YouTube videos of the senator. This one was from two years ago. Remi tapped the screen.
There was the senator in all her glory. She wore a white suit with a Christmas red cowboy hat and rhinestone-encrusted boots, standing in front of a castle in Ireland.
The press pooled around her.
The buzz and click of camera apertures were like a swarm of pesky mosquitos. But Blankenship took it in stride. She smiled to the left then the right. She sent her smiling face in a slow arc so everyone could get her best side.
“When I was a little girl, I always wanted to come to Ireland and spend some time in our cities twin. Y’all know how that works, right? Two places pick each other and work on things, almost like pen pals. As a matter of fact, when I was a little girl, there was a show on PBS called the Big Blue Marble that introduced kids to other children around the world. Not only did they do shows about other countries, but they wanted to encourage people to chat, ya know? This was long before there was the Internet. I got tickled with the thought that I could be a pen pal with someone in our sister city. So, I wrote to the address they put up on the screen, they wrote me back and said that they had someone right up the road a piece from here in Cork. Molly was my pen pal’s name. My correspondence with her was magical. She told me all about the Blarney Castle and the gift of gab. I set my sights on coming here since I was, oh, right about nine years old.”
“This way if you please, Senator.”
Blankenship angled toward the voice.
“Now, I’m a considerable bit older than I wanted to be on that adventure. Had no idea what I was gettin’ myself messed up in. When you get up there to the top of the tower, it's kind of harrowing. I’m sayin’ that for all of my Texas brethren who might want to make the trip. The trip is worth it—but you need to come prepared. First, you’ve got to get yourself up there.” She pointed to the top of the tower. “All the way up there. Then,” she crouched and spread her arms wide, “you lay down on your back, and you kind of scooch up toward the hole in the ground.”