The moving truck hadn’t arrived yet, but anticipating the need to keep the area by the front door clear, he parked a couple spaces away. He was still fighting his foul mood as he climbed out of his truck and approached the apartment. When Paige opened the door, he saw the look of surprise on her face.
“Damian? What are you doing here?”
“I told you I’d help you move in today.” He glanced down at his watch. “I’m not too early, am I?”
“No, not at all.” She stepped back and motioned him inside. “I just didn’t think you were coming.”
“Last night didn’t go exactly how I’d planned,” Damian said, fighting to keep the irritation out of his voice.
“I understood why you had to leave when you did.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
She looked at him questioningly, but when he didn’t expand on his comment, she led the way into the kitchen. “I was just about to get some breakfast. Would you like to join me? I have some raspberry croissants, and there’s some orange juice in the fridge.”
The appetite he had suppressed during his emotional turmoil came back when faced with his favorite breakfast food. “Actually, that sounds good.”
“Help yourself.” Paige motioned to the plastic container on the counter and retrieved a disposable plastic cup from the cabinet by the fridge. “There are paper plates in the cabinet right above you.”
Damian found them and took two plates out of the package. He handed one to Paige, trading it for the juice she offered him. He took a sip and leaned back against the counter. “I thought the moving truck was supposed to be here by now.”
“It was. Apparently there was some heavy traffic, so they’re running late.” She selected a croissant for herself and took a bite. She kept her eyes on him as though studying some complicated puzzle. “Is everything okay? You don’t seem yourself this morning.”
“Should I be worried that you can tell that when we’ve only been out once?”
“I don’t know.” Her shoulders lifted. “So what’s wrong?”
He hesitated, not sure he should be talking about a mission with someone outside of his command but knowing he needed to vent to someone. “My squad doesn’t trust me to carry my weight. I hate feeling like I need to prove myself, but there’s no way I can unless they decide to trust me.”
“I’m sorry. That’s rough.” She took another bite and seemed to consider the problem. “Is there anything that’s happened to make them not trust you?”
“You’re direct,” Damian said, a little surprised she wouldn’t just blindly support his frustrations.
Paige looked like she understood. “Just trying to talk through the problem.”
“To answer your question, no, there isn’t anything I’ve done to show I can’t do the job. In fact, I thought all of my exercises with the squad so far had gone really well.”
“I assume you’ve already talked to Brent about it.”
“Oh yeah. He’s the one who doesn’t trust me.”
“That’s good that the problem is out in the open though,” Paige said matter-of-factly. “Maybe when you go to work on Monday, you can ask him what it’s going to take for you to gain his trust.”
“I doubt that’s going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t think my squad will be around on Monday.” He hesitated briefly before deciding to confide in her fully. “They aren’t in town. They went on assignment without me.”
* * *
Vanessa climbed into Riley’s minivan and glanced in the backseat to see Dixon dozing in his car seat. “Thanks for coming with me. I’m sure you have a dozen things you could be doing today.”
“Thanks for asking me. You know how I get those first few days after Tristan ships out. You’d think by now I would get used to it, but . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“I know what you mean.” Vanessa gave her the address to Paige’s apartment. “The movers should get all of the big stuff in place, but I thought we could help her unpack.”
“So how’s she working out? She’s lasted longer than your last assistant.”
“Actually, she’s great. When I saw her file, I thought the personnel officer was crazy.”
“Why’s that?”
“She’s a nurse.”
“You have a nurse as your assistant? What? Did they think after you chased off the last four, you needed someone who could give herself medical treatment?”
“Ha, ha.” Vanessa smirked at Riley. “I guess she wanted a change. Other than mentioning that she’s used to shift work, she hasn’t really talked about what she did before.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Oh no. You aren’t doing that psychoanalysis thing again, are you?” After witnessing a traumatic shooting, Riley had pursued a master’s degree in criminal psychology and helped develop several classes to aid police and other first responders in similar situations.
“Sorry, it’s habit,” Riley admitted. “Most people in a new environment will use their past to try to make connections with their new associations.”
“So far she’s making connections by doing a great job. She even made friends with the guards at the front gate and has them handing out our information packets for us so we don’t have to set up someone else to meet the students.”
“Wow. I’ve been to your work. Those guards are pretty intense.”
“I know.” She lifted a hand and pointed. “Turn left here. Her complex is about a mile down on the right.”
Riley followed Vanessa’s directions and pulled up next to a pickup a few spaces down from where a moving truck was backed up to Paige’s apartment.
Vanessa’s eyes narrowed. The pickup looked suspiciously like the one she had seen Damian driving when he’d come to her house two nights before. “Is that Damian’s truck?”
“I don’t know.” Riley turned off the ignition and glanced over. “I didn’t notice what he was driving the other night.”
“I swear it’s the same one.” Vanessa pushed her door open and waited for Riley to lift the baby’s car seat out of the car, little Dixon still asleep inside it. She stepped up on the sidewalk and looked closer. “It has Texas license plates. Why would Damian’s truck be here?”
“Maybe he was out with Paige when the call came in. Paige could have been driving and dropped him off at the base.”
“I suppose so,” Vanessa said, but an uncomfortable feeling started working through her. When Damian followed the movers out Paige’s front door, surprise and uneasiness merged with that uncomfortable sensation.
With Riley following behind her, Vanessa walked toward Damian, who stood at the back of the moving truck. He spoke to the movers in Spanish, relaying where Paige wanted her couch.
“Damian, what are you doing here?” Vanessa asked.
“Helping Paige move in.” He looked directly at her but in a way that made Vanessa certain he was deliberately not giving her the information she really wanted.
“You know that’s not what I meant.” Vanessa waited until after the movers had carried the couch inside before she lowered her voice and said, “The guys shipped out last night. Why aren’t you with them?”
The muscle in his jaw twitched. “That’s exactly the question I asked last night when I watched them drive away.” He led the way into the apartment. “Paige is in the kitchen.”
“This doesn’t make sense that the whole squad wouldn’t deploy together,” Vanessa said to Riley.
“Maybe Amy knows what’s going on.”
“I’ll call her.” Vanessa slipped her phone from her pocket and dialed Amy’s number. When it went straight to voice mail, Vanessa shook her head. “It looks like Amy is with them. That can’t be sitting well with Damian.”
“Poor guy.”
“Let’s go see what we can do to help,” Vanessa suggested.
“Are you going to interrogate Damian to find out what’s going on?”
“I don’t interroga
te people,” Vanessa said, pretending to be insulted.
“Yeah right.” Riley breezed past her. “Let me know what you find out.”
* * *
Paige stood in the kitchen, amazed at how much they had already done. The movers had come and gone, and the furniture was now all in place.
Damian was currently putting her bed together, a service that hadn’t been included in her move, and Riley and Vanessa were helping her finish the kitchen.
“It’s almost one,” Riley said. “Do you want me to call Taylor to see if she’ll pick up some lunch for us?”
“That’s a good idea.” Vanessa lifted a plate from a box and slid it into the dishwasher. “Should we call to see if Carina wants to come over too?”
“She’s at her sister’s swim meet today,” Riley said. “They’ll be back late tonight though. She offered to help me run registration for the class I’m starting on base on Monday.”
“You’re teaching on base?” Paige asked.
Riley set aside an empty box and ripped the tape off another. “I run a class for the military police a couple times a year.”
“Now, who is Carina?”
“Jay’s wife. She was up in northern Virginia the other night, so you didn’t get to meet her.”
“And Taylor’s your sister?” Paige asked, still trying to figure out how everyone was connected.
“That’s right. She’s also married to Quinn, so we usually get together when the guys ship out.”
“Is this common?”
“What?”
“The way you’re all so interconnected? I mean, I can understand the squad being close, but the commander’s wife works with them, and the two of you conduct training at their base.” Paige began unloading her silverware into a drawer.
“The squad is like a family. It’s pretty much the same with the wives.”
Paige glanced toward the living room, listening for any movement there. She lowered her voice and asked, “Any suggestions of what Damian needs to do to become part of the family? He’s feeling a lot like a stepchild at the moment.”
“Change is never easy,” Riley said sympathetically.
“Does this have anything to do with why he’s here and our husbands are gone?” Vanessa asked.
“You could say that,” Paige said, her voice still low.
“Do you know what happened?”
“Not really. I just know he’s here and he feels like he should be with them.”
She heard footsteps in the living room and moved to the doorway to see Damian coming toward her. “We were just talking about getting some lunch. Are you up for that?”
“I don’t know.” Damian shuffled his feet uneasily. “I should probably get going.”
“Oh.” Paige didn’t manage to hide her disappointment.
Riley stepped forward, slipping past Paige so she could check on the baby. “You know, I should probably get the baby home before he wakes up again.”
Vanessa followed her into the living room. “Yeah, we should get going.”
“I thought you were going to stay for lunch,” Paige said.
“Sorry, I wasn’t thinking about how hard it will be to help once the baby wakes up.”
Paige watched Vanessa gather her purse as Riley shrugged on her coat.
“If you need more help tonight, give me a call,” Vanessa told her.
“I will. Thanks for everything,” Paige said, not sure what to think about their sudden change of plans.
A few minutes later, she was alone with Damian and a dozen empty boxes.
“That was strange,” Damian said after Paige closed the door behind them.
“Very strange,” Paige agreed. “Did you need to leave too?”
“I can stay a bit longer,” Damian said, apparently changing his plans as well. “Did you want to take a break and get some lunch?”
“That would be great if you have time.”
“I have time.” Damian picked up both of their jackets from where they’d tossed them on the couch. He handed Paige’s to her. “Come on. Let’s load up the empty boxes and drop them at the Dumpster on our way out.”
Paige took her coat from him. “In case I haven’t already told you, I really appreciate everything you’ve done today.”
She saw a cloud of regret in his eyes, and she hoped it didn’t have anything to do with her. Picking up several boxes, she followed him outside and prayed she could find the words to ease his pain.
Chapter 12
Amy walked with the Saint Squad toward the flight deck. She didn’t have to tell her husband how apprehensive she felt about this mission. He hadn’t said the words, but she knew he shared her feelings. He hadn’t even argued when she had insisted on getting permission for a situation report after they’d made their drop zone.
For years, Morenta had been a target of interest for the United States and for this squad in particular. Vanessa and Seth had firsthand knowledge of the man from an undercover assignment they had shared together, and both had expressed similar opinions of him.
He had no respect for life, and he would eliminate anything or anyone who got in his way. He was also inherently paranoid. It was this quality that made Amy uneasy now. Why would a man who went to such great lengths to ensure his personal security choose to meet with potential business associates in a regular hotel room?
Amy had gone over the intelligence reports herself and couldn’t fault the sources. Several telephone intercepts supported the findings, as did local reports that included a sighting of Morenta’s private plane at an airstrip outside of Maracaibo.
Everything lined up, yet she couldn’t shake her uneasy feeling.
She watched the men check their weapons before they crossed to the helicopter that would take them to their destination. When a commander intercepted the men at the landing pad, they spoke for a moment and then all headed toward her. A silent prayer went through her head that they would tell her the mission had been scrubbed.
“What’s going on?” she asked when Brent reached her.
“Our pilot is sick. They bumped us back an hour while we wait for the replacement to be briefed.”
Amy fell silent.
As though reading her thoughts, he put a hand on her arm and leaned close so only she could hear him. “Don’t worry. I’ll be sure to check in.”
“And you’ll follow Saint Squad protocol.”
“You know I will.”
“Okay.” Amy huffed out a breath and bit her tongue to keep from saying what she was really thinking. She knew it was taboo to express negative thoughts before sending men into a danger zone, but she suspected that if she did, she would be voicing everyone else’s thoughts. She didn’t feel good about this mission.
* * *
Brent used his night-vision goggles to study the terrain in the clearing and the high cliffs in the distance. Nothing about the area looked like the photos he had seen of their intended landing zone.
“Jay, check our position.”
Jay checked his equipment, fiddling with it while Quinn and Tristan fanned out to make sure they were really alone.
“Well?” Brent asked impatiently.
“Something’s wrong. According to this, we’re fifty miles from the Brazilian border. We’re over a thousand miles from where we’re supposed to be.”
“What?” Brent stepped closer and checked the equipment himself. “That can’t be right. I verified the coordinates with the pilot myself.”
“Unless this equipment is wrong, we were dropped in the wrong place.”
“Seth, call in our position and verify our drop site.”
“Roger that.” Seth switched his comm gear to the proper frequency, and his expression changed from businesslike to irritated. “My comm gear is down.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Seth shook his head.
Without waiting to be told, Jay tried his communication gear only to find that his too was faulty. “Mine’s bad too.”
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Tristan said. “I checked my gear twice before we loaded everything on the helicopter.”
“You think someone switched it?” Brent asked, already confirming that his communication gear wasn’t functioning.
“That’s exactly what I think,” Tristan said. He looked up at the cliffs. “Unless there’s some kind of jamming signal nearby.”
“We’re sitting ducks here.” Brent looked around the clearing, where their transport helicopter had dropped them. “Quinn, take point. Head for the trees to the left. Once we take cover, I want an equipment check. Let’s see what works and what doesn’t.”
Quinn took his position, and the five men spread out, alert for any movement around them. Using the darkness for cover, they headed into the jungle.
Five hundred yards into the depths of the trees, Brent chose a small clearing to reassess their situation. He signaled Tristan and Jay to take up guard positions opposite him, the three of them creating a triangle. Seth and Quinn began taking inventory, checking their own gear first.
After they finished, Quinn traded places with Tristan, and Seth headed toward Brent.
“Well?” Brent asked.
“Someone did mess with our gear. All of the communications gear was sabotaged, and our emergency transponders are missing.”
“You think someone deliberately dumped us here in the middle of nowhere and made sure we wouldn’t be found?”
“That’s exactly what I think.” Seth took a guard-like stance so Brent could check his own gear.
Sure enough, his emergency beacon was missing, and he could see where someone had taken a knife to his comm unit. “This is insane. Who would have been able to access all of our gear and then manage to leave us so far away from our target?”
“I don’t know. Everything was secured and stowed this morning when we went to our briefing. Only the flight crew would have had access to it,” Seth said. “The only equipment we checked out after we stowed the rest of our gear was our weapons.”
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