by Gennita Low
“I think he graduated to goats,” Hawk observed. The others snickered. “How’s Vivi?”
One couldn’t hide much from his fellow frogs. They knew. “She wasn’t hurt,” Jazz answered the unvoiced concern. “How’s Turner?”
“Hurt one of his knees.” Joker handed a tray to Mink, who passed it Cucumber.
“Yeah, his weenie,” Cucumber said, stressing on the “wee” as he gave the tray to Jazz. “We saved some of the leftover feast for ya.”
“Thanks,” Jazz said, looking at all the different small containers. “Very nice. You guys went to a Tupperware party while I was gone.”
“Eat, clean, debrief,” Hawk told him.
“With all respect, sir, he looks like he’s already been debriefed,” Dirk said, wiping hands blackened from gun oil with a cloth, “several times, last night.”
“Yeah, I want to read his After Actions Report.”
“Top Secret, I bet.”
“Yeah, well, dude, I just want to get to the bottom, which would be the more interesting part, ya understand?”
His team’s easy camaraderie was their way of telling him they were happy he was in one piece. But for the first time, Jazz didn’t want to exchange the usual male locker-room humor and easy banter. His night with Vivi—or at least, certain parts of it—was off limits.
“I’ll see you all in an hour,” he told them, as he headed toward Hawk’s and his quarters.
“What the hell is wrong with him?” he heard Mink ask as he walked out of the hall.
“Sensitive and broody, isn’t he? He doesn’t look well at all.”
Jazz shook his head. The Stooges—Mink, Cumber, and Dirk—were deliberately needling him in loud whispers. He paused long enough to hear the punch line.
“Yeah, he’s got Coxic Shock Syndrome.”
Everyone in the room was a fucking clown. Jazz slammed the door shut to their laughter.
Back in the room, he peeled off his torn and filthy clothes and threw them in a small pile near the door. He opened one of the containers and snatched up some kind of rice snack. He was starving and if he didn’t clean up now, he was going to sit here and eat and eat. Hitching the towel around his hips, he headed off again, this time to the community bath facility down the hall.
As the water beat on him, he looked at the water draining at his feet. He definitely needed the shower. Keeping clean was a luxury that SEALs didn’t usually have during an operation. He had been in situations where traveling with farm animals was the only option in or out of a region, and after a few weeks, the animals around probably thought the men hunkered among them were their brothers. He grinned at the fleeting memory. Life was never boring.
But it was time to think about wanting more. He loved his country and his job, and hadn’t given serious thought about his future. He wanted Vivi to be a part of it. Maybe if he had something more to offer her, she would see something in him, too.
Back in his quarters, he found Hawk in the room, writing something on a notepad. He didn’t look up as Jazz went over to the dresser and pulled out the top drawer. There was the same kind of loose-fitting local garment that Hawk had worn before. He pulled on the pants. They were too short for his long legs but it would have to do for now.
“Is Vivi really all right? Why isn’t she here?” Hawk asked.
“She went off in another vehicle, probably needed to be debriefed,” Jazz said. He paused in the middle of buttoning his shirt. “And I don’t want to hear another debriefing joke. “What are you writing?”
Hawk shrugged. “A shopping list. A letter. A will.”
Jazz frowned. That wasn’t quite Hawk’s usual thing. “Why now?”
“I was going to wait till after the admiral talk to tell you—”
“Mad Dog is going to talk to us?” Jazz interrupted.
“Yes, video link. It’ll be in two parts, one a private meeting with just our team and then with the joint mission.”
Admiral Madison always took time to congratulate his teams after a mission. It would be interesting to hear him address the joint mission panel. After watching Vivi at work, Jazz’s admiration for the independent contractors had grown in leaps.
But something wasn’t right. He could sense Hawk’s restlessness, even though his friend hadn’t shown any sign of it. “What were you going to tell me?”
Hawk’s expression was closed. “I’m probably going to miss Christmas. The shopping list is for you to pick up a couple of things for me and send them in my name so folks back home think I’m okay. The letter for you to keep just incase…you need to explain anything. The will…well, that’s self-explanatory.”
“You care to give me a fuller explanation of what’s happening?” Christmas was months away, so why was Hawk preparing a list now? And his words seemed to mean that he wasn’t going to be with the team during that time.
“Remember when I went to help my cousin extract his girl in D.C.? I told you about Project X-S-BOT.”
Jazz nodded. “I remember. Some files in the laptop stolen from the Naval Lab. That was why Marlena was in D.C., you said—to find out who was trying to sell it.”
“Yes, and that’s how she and Steve met.”
Hawk’s cousin had been sent to D.C. to find the mole at the agency responsible for providing information that had led to several members of the admiral’s SEAL teams being killed. With Marlena’s and GEM’s help, Steve had uncovered the traitor. Through his own snatches of conversation with family members, Jazz heard there was a big scandal happening in D.C. right now. It had been reported that the same traitor had been selling national secrets for the last decade. He had tuned out most of the stuff his sister had told him about security councils, public outrage, and all the political shenanigans happening back home. News never made sense, anyhow, when one was living it. However, this incident with Steve and Marlena had been of interest to the teams because they had wanted to catch the man who had sold out their brothers.
Hawk handed him a piece of paper, indicating a need for secrecy. Jazz read the small and neat handwriting. “Recently, we have found proof of the traitors selling our high-tech weaponry secrets to arms dealers. Mad Dog made a deal with GEM. Their top operatives have been working to infiltrate several very well-known arms dealers the last few years. Marlena Maxwell in D.C. was Phase Two. Our side wants the location of where the latest cache of weapons was dropped. It has to do with X-S-BOT. I’ve been ordered to do Phase Three and GEM will facilitate my new role. I’ll be in deep cover for probably up to six months, infiltrating Dilaver’s network.”
“Alone.” It wasn’t a question. Jazz already understood that it was a lone assignment. One clearly couldn’t access Dilaver’s network with a team of SEALs. His statement was meant to underline the danger of the job of working as a double agent. “What’s the assignment?”
“Find out his U.S. contacts and where he hides the ‘extra’ weapons sent by our traitors. Break down his army in zones. But most important of all, destroy the latest shipment. Then run like hell.” Hawk cracked a small smile. “With the knowledge in my head, they’ll be hunting me down. I have to pass it along to another contact just in case they capture me.”
Jesus. The KLA had, among various factions, a formidable army of gangsters. They and other Dilaver gang members would find Hawk and kill him, if they had to go house to house. His friend was foreseeing the possibility of being exterminated before he could escape, thus the shopping list, the letter, and the will.
They eyed each other for a full, sobering minute. Hawk and he had made an agreement a long time ago. If one didn’t make it, the other would take care of personal things. If by chance, one went missing, the other was to somehow do the impossible—find out whether he was dead or alive so family members could be told one day.
“You’d better come home in one piece, buddy, or I’d have to tell all those Steves and Stevens you got drunk and drowned during training,” Jazz said quietly. “They won’t believe me and I don’t feel like beati
ng up a bunch of your relatives when they attack me for lying to them.”
Hawk grinned. “I’ll try my best to save your pretty face from my family.”
“And I need you back in case I need a best man,” Jazz added.
Hawk played with the pen, studying him thoughtfully. “Sure she’s the one?”
Jazz nodded. “It’ll take time to get her to come around to thinking about being with me.” He hesitated, then added, “Okay, so I don’t really know how I’m going to accomplish that.”
Not when they hadn’t actually talked about the future. So far, he had just found out about her past.
“Find out her real name,” Hawk advised.
“What do you mean?”
“Do you know that opera called Turandot?”
Jazz walked over to the small table where he had set all the food containers. “I need food. My twin is talking Puccini with me,” he addressed no one in particular.
“I saw the opera with Steve and Marlena in D.C.”
Now he remembered. Cucumber, Dirk, and Mink had talked about that particular night not long after their big shootout. Of course, their version had nothing to do with the opera. In fact, he recalled hearing that Cucumber had slept through the whole show.
“Okay, let’s talk Turandot,” Jazz said as he sniffed at an orange-colored concoction.
“It’s about a beautiful princess who won’t marry you unless you answer three riddles correctly. If you fail, she orders your execution.” Hawk used his pen to demonstrate a mock beheading. “Pretty cold lady.”
“So, are you trying to tell me I’m going to fail or that I’m going to win Vivi’s hand? This mango rice is delicious, by the way.”
Hawk stood up and went to join him at the table. He scooped up some of the rice with his hand. “I’m betting on you to get all those riddles right, buddy.”
“Oh, good. You’re on my side. I thought you were interested in the princess and were wishing me to be the unfortunate dead suitor.”
Hawk reached for more rice. “What, you want competition? Isn’t that a bit tough when I’m not around to win?”
Jazz pushed the container out of the way. “My food. I can’t win what’s mine.”
A smile tugged at his friend’s lips. “Touché,” he said. “Just remember one thing, and I’m telling you because I’m your best-est friend who wants to see you win your girl.”
“You’re getting soft and sentimental.”
“I’m going away for a while. Who’s going to give you all that girly advice while I’m gone? Are you letting your sisters do your work for you?”
Jazz shuddered. He could just see all his sisters around Vivi. They loved him fiercely and would probably scare Vivi to death with instructions and questions. “Fine. Tell me what to do, Dear Abby.”
“The princess has a riddle, man. Answer it.”
Jazz chewed for several seconds. “You’re kidding right? You’re asking me to follow an opera’s storyline. That’s your girly advice?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, it sucks.”
“Think it over tonight while you jerk off.”
“I’d rather think of Vivi, thank you.”
They bantered lightheartedly for a few minutes before Hawk went back to his desk. They had to go to debriefing soon. Jazz ate quietly, watching his friend write. It was sort of macabre to eat and observe Hawk taking measures against an uncertain future. Just in case.
Time was so precious in this world. He wanted Vivi in it. In a perfect future, he would wish for his best friend to be there for his wedding.
“It’d be a pleasure to get to kiss such a beautiful princess bride,” Hawk murmured without looking up, uncannily reading his mind as usual.
“I might even let you, my friend.”
A riddle, huh? He’d better brush up on his Turandot story.
CHAPTER
22
In spite of her aversion to military talk and political tactics, Vivi had to admit that Admiral Madison cut a very commanding and captivating figure on the big screen. He must be very impressive in person. He certainly had a way with words, cutting to the chase without any frills or pompous references. She could see his men looked at him as a role model; every time he spoke, it was as if Moses was handing down the Commandments.
She had always been cynical about the top brass—they were up there, looking down, and usually never knew what was truly happening. Admiral Madison struck her as someone who actually did care about his men and their lives. He was strong and authoritative, yet took the time to listen to Hawk and Jazz when they had something to say, and he certainly gave a lot of weight to T.’s advice. It wasn’t a show he put on, like some higher-ups did when there were female figures around. He was neither condescending nor smarmy, and Vivi found herself actually paying attention to everything he said.
GEM was in a covert war within a covert war, and she played a tiny part in it now, like it or not. Her current contract had to do with women and children, but now that she had agreed to help Armando Chang, she would have to insert herself into Phase Three. She hadn’t planned to before, but Armando’s desperation had touched her. He was looking for a missing sister. Even if he hadn’t baited her with Sia-Sia, she might have taken up his cause.
She bit back a wry smile. Or maybe not. She was still mad at his underhanded tactic but a part of her was grudgingly acknowledging his skill at having gone undetected by her. She was very good at what she did; she usually knew when someone was following her around, but Armando Chang had successfully evaded her. She knew that had caught her chief’s attention.
Kosovo. KLA. Arms dealing and drugs. Macedonian cartels. Those contracts had never interested her before. Her focus had always been on more immediate things, like tracking female slavery and child abuse. Those were important causes to her.
Yet T. and Admiral Madison had given her a new view of how everything was connected in this horror. And how tangled the web of political intrigue was. The different wars in Kosovo had given too many factions reasons to abuse power.
“I know sometimes we don’t see the big picture,” the admiral addressed them quietly. “If you ask the average person on the street, they can’t tell you anything about the battles going on that our young men are fighting. They will say the general things—the war against terrorism, against despots, against injustices. You who fight in the trenches know these things are just faceless banners. They don’t mean a damn thing. Whether it’s the heat of the jungle or desert or anywhere on this earth, each of us battles small pockets that sometimes don’t even make sense.
“The newspapers give a lot of attention to the public battles. I also know you could care less what the papers report while you’re sweating your asses off knee-deep in mud and blood. There is no glory in what we do, men. And ladies, too, pardon me, T. and Miss Verreau. We are in a covert war that grows more urgent everyday because our enemies—the real ones—play shadow games. Our troops are fighting battles with the enemies’ foot soldiers. That is all very well and important. It’s essential to destroy our enemies’ weapons—human and nonhuman.
“But let’s be clear among ourselves about the invisible front—we who stand in the crossfire. I have come to realize that we must also win the war behind the war. That’s the job of special ops units such as ours in this room. Both our worlds must work together for optimum success. One is our world of dirty fighting, going right at the source, those damn cartels and factions that run all the illegal activities that finance terrorism. The other is infiltration and covert subversion, which the COS commandos and GEM operatives do. Our battles are different—we SEALs favor quick injection of violence, in and out, with maximum destruction of potential enemy networks; they, on the other hand, specialize in going in deep and working among our enemies for long periods to gain insight and knowledge. But we are also alike in many ways. We lurk in the shadows to find the real enemy. We do a lot of the dirty work behind the scenes because it’s necessary. We are in the crossfi
re because we’re the invisible warriors. If anything goes wrong, the average Joe on the street will never know the real story.”
The admiral paused, and even across the miles, his blue eyes were direct and steady. Vivi found herself holding her breath, waiting for him to continue. She had never seen the big picture the way he had described it. He made sense out of a lot of confusion. At one point, she caught T.’s eyes on her, studying her reaction to what was a pep talk for a group of soldiers. T. understood her discomfort with the talk of war and battles. To her, soldiers had always done the destruction, created the problems; her job dealt with the aftermath. But Admiral Madison’s speech gave a new spin.
“I’m here in D.C. because of this shadow war. State secrets and high technology are being sold by traitors within our borders to illegal cartels merging like Wall Street corporations. There are countries eager to buy this information. Intel. Arms dealing. Sex trade. Drugs. They all combine to finance power. We just caught one of these traitors recently, but not before he had done untold damage to our nation. Not only did some of our SEAL brothers die because of this scum, but probably many other covert operatives have been sacrificed.
“The latest discovery—not told to the public, of course—is some dropped shipments of high tech weapons not meant for the KLA or any foreign troops. From our investigations here, we know Dilaver either knows where they are or has them. We need to find and destroy these shipments or risk bigger and more expensive wars. I’m sending in a lone infiltrator, just like GEM and COS Command has already done. This man will work with their man. He will go back to Kosovo with Dilaver—alone.
“There will be one more joint mission that will give our man the opportunity to insert himself as Dilaver’s helper. The specifics of the operation will be given to you by Tess Montgomery, a very capable strategist in her own right. You—and I mean everyone in this room—are an invisible warrior, a soldier who is in the crossfire taking all the risks while avoiding being caught. Know this. You are the big picture. Get the job done and come back home safely, men.”