Well, these words applied to men as well.
Gibril understood this to be true, and it was part of the reason she loved being with him. His family had weathered many storms, coming from a rich culture and dynasty, having lost their fortunes and their lands many times, yet always bouncing back over the centuries to reclaim what was rightfully theirs. He could trace his roots back nearly five hundred years. In Gibril’s family were the seeds of rugged determination and perseverance, like what she tried to bring to women in her Success Summits. Perhaps someday, it would be appropriate for Gibril to tell his story to her followers.
But not yet. The world was too polarized by divisions and hatred and, just like Gibril had mentioned, small-minded evil-doers who only wanted to wreak havoc with those more fortunate, enslaving those who would try to break out of the pattern of bigotry and clannish hatred. She’d spoken to women who wanted to attend her money-making sessions, only to let her know that they were not allowed to do so by the patriarchs of their family.
She turned off the television, rinsed her dishes, poured another full glass of Cabernet, and headed for her bedroom suite upstairs. Passing the elevator grates, she decided to unpack her suitcases in the morning. Tonight, she wanted to meditate in a warm bath by candlelight and dream about all the things that could be in her fantasy world.
She chose the rose bath salts and the bright pink rose-scented candle Gibril had brought her on their trip to Monterey. Slipping beneath the warm bubbles, she put a cool washcloth over her eyes and leaned back to meditate on that perfect world.
It didn’t take long before her walk in the woods came to view. At first, she was alone. Then Gibril was at her side, which had recently been happening. She just allowed the vision to proceed without trying to direct it. As they stepped on hand-hewn wooden planks through the virgin rain forest, a light mist fell around them and fed the tall redwoods. Bird calls echoed throughout, as well as sounds of small animals burrowing beneath the planks and scurrying up the bark of the majestic trees. Occasionally, a winged insect would fly by on its mission to somewhere deep in the forest. She was always moved to tears when she saw this place, her perfect place.
As they walked through the foliage, the trees became tall ferns and the sounds of the ocean took over the forest symphony. She could feel the ebb and flow pulling at her heart, her stomach, willing her legs to walk along the wooden path until her bare toes hit warm sand.
She faced a sunset on the white waters of the surf, the breeze in her face, but she could still smell the thick green forest at her back, supporting and protecting her from harm.
Then his arms were about her body, strong and protective. She leaned into his chest and felt the brisk inhale and a vibration like a hushed moan given involuntarily. The warmth of his body set her insides aglow as she surrendered to the cloud of protection he gave her. He placed his face against her cheek, the early stubble of a beard startling. His lips kissed her neck. His strong fingers plied the muscles at the top of her spine and shoulders, massaging and smoothing out all the kinks, all her rough patches and all the places where she had imaginary sharp angles and pains. Everything was releasing as she let her self go, totally becoming one with his motions, with his kisses.
One hand slipped beneath her shirt, smoothing up her back, fingers kneading each vertebra. She turned so that his hand would cover her breast. With her eyes still closed, she felt him pull her towards him, heard his mouth open as he pulled her to his lips.
It suddenly occurred to her that she was tasting forbidden fruit, but the sweetness of his tongue and the need in her soul would not let her stop. Everything was safe. Everything was resolved. Every passion fulfilled or promised. Every certainty discovered and underscored. She was home as she took from him and then fed him back.
Until, in her daydream, she opened her eyes. The man standing before her was Morgan Hansen, her ex. And though she’d worked for over ten years to eliminate him from her memory and her life, today, he was right there as deeply embedded in that familiar way she now remembered. And she knew he would be impossible to replace, or ever forget.
Chapter 5
“You’re not going to convince him, Morgan. This is a fool’s mission.” J.J.’s forehead sweated as his large paw gripped the handle on the passenger door. Morgan knew he was driving fast, and it tickled him to think he could still scare one of his best friends of all time.
J.J. had made the call, and all holy hell had broken loose at the CIA. Commander Lambert was flying out to set things straight, and he’d warned J.J. that he’d just violated one of the most important tenants of his new job—secrecy. No matter what, Morgan thought J.J. had balls the size of an elephant’s to stand up to Commander Lambert.
“Cool it, J.J. Wouldn’t be manly to piss your pants.”
“Fuck you. You don’t scare me. It’s just that this guy flying out here to tell you no is a big deal. And it might affect everything. Have you been listening to the news? That attack in Portland only makes what this special Team is doing all the more important, and something that needs to be kept secret. They’re not going to jeopardize things for your whim.”
“It’s not a whim, and you know I have a good reason, J.J.”
“Fuck! You’re so pig-headed.”
“You knew this when you knocked on my door yesterday morning. When you revealed to me what you’d been asked to do. Don’t claim you didn’t.”
“Did you ever consider they’d deny adding you onto the team and can me at the same time? Then where would you be? You’d be having to sit on your hands—ordered to sit on your hands while some other asshole was out there trying to protect your ex—someone you didn’t even know or trust.”
“Then I’ll get to him. Somehow I’d find out who they assigned, and I’d get to him. I’m not going to back down, J.J.”
“The Commander says they wouldn’t hire anyone but a former SEAL. And he can’t hire an active duty frog. That’s strictly prohibited. How the hell are you going to find him then? Or try to do this on your own? You can’t, Morgan. You’ll go to prison.”
“Hasn’t stopped some,” Morgan mumbled.
“But not for an official high-level mission. And most the time, we keep it quiet because it was an oversight. Come on, Morgan. You know how it works.”
“We all know there are the Team rules, the Headshed rules, the official version, and then public opinion.”
“And now there’s your rules, Morgan. They’re not going to go along with it.”
“Doesn’t matter what they do. I’m not giving up on the idea of leading a team to uncover the plot that may or may not be real.”
J.J. screwed up his nose. “Oh, I think it’s real alright. Again to my point about the Portland attack. Things are escalating. You know they are. And now you know something you shouldn’t have. He’ll probably let me have it both barrels. They’ll tie my ankles to an anchor, and I’ll be buried somewhere in Coronado Bay.”
“Since when do you get intimidated by desk jockeys?”
“Lambert was a sonofabitch, Morgan. You knew him when he was in the field. He’s no desk jockey.”
“I wouldn’t change my mind if the President of the United States called me.”
“And you’d go to prison, Morgan. That could happen.”
“If they found me.”
“So what if he shows up with a detail of guards? Take you in? Morgan, you better get a Plan B formulated in a hurry if you don’t want to get blindsided or react and do something you’d regret.”
“Plan B is for losers.”
“You don’t mean that. On the Teams, we always had a Plan B, Plan C, all the way to the All-Hell-Fuckit-Plan-Z, remember? Nothing ever worked out the way we thought it would. And we trained for every eventuality. This makes no sense. You’re not in shape, you’ve not lead a team in years, and I doubt anyone would want to go with you at this point. You’re an old man, Morgan. Face the facts.”
Morgan took a quick glance at his friend. “Tell me you
don’t mean that.” He tried to make it sound softer, but the loudness of his Hemi Diesel truck motor drowned out their conversation. His anger was creeping in, and he knew he’d have to work at reeling it in a bit. “J.J., when was the last time you lead a team? And you’re saying you wouldn’t trust doing a mission with me? Really?”
J.J. scowled but didn’t say anything intelligible.
“Where is this place?”
J.J. stared at the GPS on Morgan’s dash. “Says we passed it back there. Oh wait. It’s on the left, right there.”
Morgan did an illegal U-turn, his fat truck tires on the right jumping the curb. He nearly took out a sapling that had been recently planted. Lawn was beginning to poke through brown mulch thinly laid down. The recent landscape job was simple, precise, and had all the earmarks of pure Federal Government.
He found the parking lot and drove to the gated entrance guarded by a two-man sentry of Federal Police, one handling incoming cars and one handling cars leaving the lot.
Morgan rolled down his window and squinted at the pinkish-skinned kid in the CIA Police uniform. “Ghostbusters” they were sometimes called by the Team guys.
“We’re here to see Commander Greg Lambert.”
The young guard checked his watch list screen. “I need proper identification, gentlemen.”
Morgan and J.J. handed over their California Driver’s licenses.
The guard had them both sign a guest pass, filled out with their license information, and replaced them with a pass card to place in the truck and two visitor badges.
“Put this on the Driver’s Side, and park in one of the striped visitor slots over to the left. Your entrance to the building will be the double glass doors right in front of the parking lot. Have a good day, gentlemen.”
Morgan placed the placard on the dash and turned to park where he’d been told. Before they climbed out of the truck, J.J. grabbed his arm.
“You aren’t packing, right?”
“Of course not. You think I’m stupid? I keep everything under the floorboards.”
“And no knives either, right?”
“J.J., I have been around the block a time or two.”
“One more thing,” J.J. added, ignoring Morgan’s comment. “Stay calm. You get angry, you probably get hauled to jail. We’re talking top secret stuff here. This is not a high-level facility, which means they don’t trust us worth shit. We’ll get to see that stuff if we’re accepted into the fold.”
“I thought this was totally covert. You changing your story, J.J.?”
“For all anyone else knows, you’re applying to become a Federal Agent or join the CIA Police force. Wouldn’t be the first former SEAL to try to go for that.”
Morgan knew former SEALs were not likely candidates for the FBI or the CIA. They had too much rogue, and the Agencies felt they’d not had enough discipline and supervision to be proper recruits. Everyone he knew of who had applied had never gotten beyond the first interview.
“Thanks for the tip,” he muttered to J.J.
Inside the glass doors, they were greeted by a huge metal detector and two more uniformed Police, both armed. They put their keys and wallets into a tray, which was scanned prior to the body scan they walked through. Morgan wasn’t surprised when the buzzer went off, since he’d had a metal hip replacement just before detaching from the teams ten years ago. He was subjected to a limited body search, as the officer moved the wand over his hip and pelvis after Morgan lifted his shirt to show the large scar from the surgery.
Once cleared, he waited for J.J.’s turn, which also triggered a buzzer. J.J. had had an elbow and shoulder reconstruction with a plate in his forearm holding together his ulna, which had been broken in several places from an IED explosion in Afghanistan. It also left a sliver of metal embedded in his skull above his right ear that was not life threatening but could not be removed without causing brain damage.
They were both shown to Conference Room B, which was really an interview room not much larger than a big walk-in closet. They had a seat behind a gray table someone had sliced initials into. It had a gray government-issue label on the side, which someone had tried prying off.
The door sucked open, and Lambert stepped in, wearing civilian clothes but still looking all-military. His gray slacks and Navy blue zipper jacket, without a logo of any kind, were ironed crisply. His boots sported the high polish consistent with his rank.
Morgan considered getting to his feet, as J.J. did, out of respect of Lambert’s position, but Lambert frowned and commanded his buddy sit.
“Okay, Hansen. What’s this horseshit about you going on this ride with Johnson here? I told him it was a bad idea to even involve you in the first place, and you can see I was right.”
“No, sir. I think J.J. was right to tell me.”
“Well, I’m not quite sure how we’ll reward that. Mr. Johnson here was preselected for this special group. You weren’t considered—your name never came up. I’m here to give you the courtesy of telling you in person. The answer isn’t just no; it’s hell no. I want to be sure you don’t say or do something to ruin the whole program. This isn’t like being on a Team and you guys striking out to do some dumb shit like you used to do. This is something that could take down a whole administration if it isn’t handled right. So, Hansen, I’m just going to be frank with you so we don’t waste each other’s time. You’re not stable enough to be on this mission.”
“And how’s that, sir?”
“I’ve read your file.” He tapped his finger on a gray folder labeled S.O. Hansen, M., Retired. “I know it’s not complete and probably filled with holes, but it’s a quickie profile I don’t think you’ll be too proud of. I understand fully why you weren’t considered.”
Morgan fisted and unfisted his right hand beneath the table clandestinely.
“You’re pretty busy with your Bone Frog Brotherhood shit—the losers who beat up their wives and then go cry in their beer and relive the glory days. You assholes don’t fool me one bit.”
“Sir—” J.J. tried to insert himself.
“Shut up, Johnson. I’ll get to you in a minute.”
Morgan had had enough. He inhaled and tried to soften the blast of words he wasn’t going to hold back any longer. Disrespecting his little gatherings, disrespected the men who had lost a part of themselves while they were serving. “I’m helping the guys who couldn’t make it when they got home, sir. The ones who gave their all to the Navy—are still doing it, in some cases—but lost their families. With all due respect, sir, I don’t know a one of them who has beaten up a woman, and if they ever did, they wouldn’t be a part of the group. Now, if that makes me a loser, then I’m a proud loser.”
Lambert blinked several times, sitting erect. “They got counselors for that crap, Hansen. Who made you the God of getting guys straight in the head after a divorce?”
“I make sure they get that, too. For some, I’m all they’ve got.”
Lambert slumped back in his seat, crossed his arms, and studied the two of them. His eyes roamed mostly on Morgan.
“You think you’re pretty smug with that answer, Hansen?”
“No, sir. I’m just one of the ones who help them heal. At least that’s what I tell myself, anyway. There wasn’t anything like that for me, so I created it. And who the fuck else wants to do it? Can you tell me that? Besides, they make good drinkin’ buddies.”
After a pause, Lambert leaned back to the table, tapping his right hand on the plastic top. He took a long time before answering. “Well, I think I owe you a bit of an apology, then, son. We didn’t quite look at it that way in Washington, D.C. I’m sorry we didn’t consider your sensitive feelings.”
The Commander was picking a deliberate fight.
“I got nothing left to live for, sir. With all due respect.”
J.J. even looked over at him, shock painted all over his face. Tension in the room was about to make the fluorescents pop.
“That’s not exactly the requir
ement we need for acceptance into the division. We got ways of making decisions in Washington, and they go way beyond your fucking needs.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know about that. I’m not exactly schooled in politics, and I don’t plan to be anytime soon, either.”
Morgan could see the Commander was wavering, though he didn’t want to show it. He figured it was lethal to one’s career to make a decision to add a member to the team without proper vetting from above. But he also guessed that the threat level was so high, the potential loss of life so potentially tragic, that having an inside track to the main focus of the terrorists might save them expensive mistakes. He was rewarded when Lambert responded. It was the opportunity he needed to make his final point.
“So, Hansen, tell me why I should let you work with Johnson here on this mission? Why should I trust you with something so delicate it could end not only my career, but several other men I serve with and care deeply about? Could bring down an entire administration.”
Morgan matched the quiet way Lambert had come back to the table. He made sure his voice didn’t contain a bit of anger, frustration, or fear. “Because if, as J.J. says, terrorists are after Halley, the last person in the world they’d expect to come to her aid would be me. That is, if they’ve done their homework. And I think if they’re planning something big, someone is working on good intel and doing lots of homework.”
“You’ve told him the details?” Lambert asked J.J., the anger now washed from his face.
“Not much of them, sir. I wasn’t going to do that until I had your approval. But frankly, there weren’t that many details to give him.”
“I had a feeling this would happen,” quipped Lambert. “You SEALs are as thick as thieves the way you stick together. Even after your service. You don’t mix much with the active guys—”
Bachelor SEAL (Sleeper SEALs Book 5) Page 4