Hunter didn’t mind what had become a nightly interruption. Quickly covering her with the blankets, he eased her to her side of the bed. If Courtney needed reassurance, Hunter meant to give it to him. “What’s up, buddy?”
As usual, Courtney shuffled to Hunter’s side of the bed. Dressed in his bright red, Elmo footie pajamas, he had Bear snuggled in one arm, while Black Jack dangled from the other. “I had a bad dweam, Hunner. Kin I sweep wiff you?”
“Sure thing.” Hunter scooped his son off the floor and, after he made sure those Elmo PJs were dry, he settled Courtney between the sheet and blanket at his left. Their nightly ritual also included both Hunter and Meredith sneaking out of bed once Courtney fell asleep, to slip into their pajamas. But for now, with him and his bears snuggled between them, they were the epitome of a happy family.
The little guy had reverted to sucking his thumb and bedwetting, but neither Meredith nor Hunter let Courtney be embarrassed by what he had no control over. They did laundry together, even gave Bear and Black Jack a bath with Courtney when they needed one. Bubbles and all.
The Christian family went to the gun range where Courtney was learning the basics of hunter safety. How to properly hold a loaded weapon. How to aim. Why you never played with guns. Good and reasonable things like that.
They ate hotdogs and fries at a local Mom and Pop’s Café afterward, and they always took Bear, and Black Jack, with them. Life at the newly purchased Christian homestead on the four-acre plot in Falls Church, was settling down. Hunter made certain of that.
He hadn’t brought a dog home yet, but he planned to. Hunter had a good friend who raised the best German Shepherd pups in the country. Courtney would love another furry friend at his beck and call.
Unless Courtney brought it up, no one talked about the bastard who’d abducted him. For certain, no one called him father or daddy. Welch was simply Welch or—that bad man. Son-of-a-bitch and bastard were reserved for Meredith and Hunter when they were alone.
Come to find out, those legal documents Welch had initiated, his will and his relinquishment of parental rights, were legal. Courtney was his heir, but no longer his son. That made adopting him easier. Hunter had already filed the paperwork.
As far as the promised billions Courtney was supposed to inherit? Hunter didn’t give a good gawddamn if his kid ever saw a penny of that filthy cash. Welch would probably rewrite his will in prison anyway. Let him.
Since Aberdeen, Courtney had decided Hunner was the best. Anywhere Hunter went, Courtney was sure to follow, like the sweet little lamb he was. They’d grown as close as a father and son could be, but that was no surprise.
Hunter knew the day he’d found Courtney they’d be best buddies. Sitting there in the cold water like they had, a bond of brotherhood bound Hunter to Courtney more permanently than blood. It was the unspoken promise of men who fought side by side, who covered each other’s asses, and who never left the other behind. Even though one of those men was only three and a half.
Meredith braced her head in her palm and peered over her drowsy son to Hunter. “Tell me again,” she said softly. “How did you win Courtney’s heart so quickly?”
Hunter stretched his neck to place a kiss on his wife’s forehead. She loved this story. “I married his mother. You might know her. Meredith Christian. Sexy blonde fighting machine. Fierce Amazon-warrior type.”
Meredith’s brows lifted. “You mean the woman who lost her gun?”
He winked at her. “That’s my girl.”
“You guys are squishing me,” Courtney grumbled sleepily as he wiggled between them. “Be quiet. Bear’s sweepin’.”
Even in the dark, Hunter saw the sparkle in Meredith’s eyes. Was she crying? She did that a lot these days. She’d come out of that debacle with her ex a changed woman, still afraid of snakes and maybe a little meaner. Definitely a lot stronger. But ridden with a good mother’s guilt. Hence, the tears.
She over-compensated, over-protected, and could get downright nasty if anyone laid a hand on Courtney. Hunter wasn’t worried about that either. It might take her a while, but she’d adjust. She’d learn.
Like his pretty wife, Hunter learned his toughest lessons the hard way. He couldn’t help wondering if those stents in his heart weren’t due, in part, to his mistaking Meredith’s running off with Welch for love. Knowing that had never been the case made a definite difference. Hunter’s heart wasn’t so ragged these days. He smiled more often and he teased. He’d remembered how to play. You might even say he was a happy SOB. Ahem, make that a happy man. He was still working on that not cussing clause in his marriage vows.
Eric Reynolds finally came out of his coma. In an unexpected turn of events, Zack Lennox had found Eric’s boxful of secrets taped to his chest the day Masters stabbed him. Hunter was in the office when Zack laid it on Eric’s desk. The look on Reynolds’ face was telling. He’d opened his mouth like he wanted to talk, but nothing came out. No thank you. No explanation either. He’d just nodded once, then stuffed the box in his desk drawer and went back to work. The day would come he’d have to face his demons, whatever they were. Hunter only hoped Eric’s story ended as well as his.
As far as how Welch knew about the beta test, Hunter had found it damned—darned—peculiar that both Lyle Salaz and Dan Randolph were executed so quickly. It was almost as if they’d been targeted for execution. After voicing that opinion to Mr. McCormack, Jed had his security people dig into both men’s research in the MI lab. They uncovered irrefutable evidence of collusion between Welch, Salaz, and Randolph. They’d been on Welch’s payroll for months before the beta test, reporting on the top-secret ActiveCamouflage research.
Hunter wasn’t surprised. He’d never liked the jerk who’d referred to heroic military members as assets. As for Dan, Hunter could honestly say he’d never met the coward. Apparently, Randolph never had the guts to look the people he’d betrayed in the eye.
Another interesting side note: From the first time he’d heard the name fall off poor Bradley’s lips, Hunter found it peculiar Welch insisted the boys he had abducted called him Master. The name grated on Hunter, so similar to Travis Masters. It wasn’t until the day after the bomb scare at McCormack Industries, that Ember and Rory stumbled across the connection. Eddy Welch and Travis Masters were cousins on Welch’s mother’s side of the family. But worse, Masters had been dishonorably discharged from the Corps and done time—for child molestation of a ten-year-old boy. It seemed Welch’s ugliest character flaw ran in the family.
The Dennisons also uncovered why Welch had selected the corporations he’d targeted. It seemed the CEOs heading those businesses belonged to the same East Coast ring of pedophiles that Welch did. He was no financial genius. He just knew how to leverage a few illicitly obtained photographs against his friends. Hunter had to give Welch a shred of credit. The man certainly had the market on ego and pride locked up tighter than a pirate’s treasure chest.
“You saved my son,” Meredith whispered in the dark. “You didn’t have to, but you did, and you saved me, too. I love you, Hunter. So does Courtney.”
He reached over their sleeping child to wipe away the tear trekking down her cheek with the pad of his thumb. His fingers lingered in her hair, winding a golden curl between them. Because of Merry and Courtney, Hunter had stars in his eyes. He’d taken to reading poetry and stories again, though admittedly, most of those stories had to do with a little yellow bear named Pooh who lived in A. A. Milne’s Hundred-Acre Wood.
“It’s no big deal, Merry. I just love him. That’s what fathers do.”
She blew out a tremulous sigh. “All this time, he thought Courtney was yours. He thought I tricked him into marrying him. He called him that…” Another soft sigh. “… that ugly B word.”
Welch thought Courtney was a bastard? What a flaming ass.
“Thank you again for saving us, Hunter,” she murmured. “You’ve changed everything.”
Meredith had it wrong. If anyone was saved, it was him.
Tough Marine. Trained hunter/killer. Hunter Christian.
Yet that was precisely what happened. A scared little guy had dared reach out and trust a guy as lost as he was. In doing so, Courtney rescued Hunter as much as Hunter rescued him.
Any silly old Bear could see that.
The End
Sneak Preview of Eric
Book 15
In the Company of Snipers
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts. We’re in for a bumpy ride.”
Again?
There was no need to return. Junior Agent Eric Reynolds never unbuckled once he’d lowered his butt into first-class seating and strapped in. Didn’t matter which airline he flew. Didn’t matter the destination. Only when all wheels touched down on planet Earth again would he think of unfastening that buckle. Screw physics. The science behind jet propulsion couldn’t compete with the force of attraction behind Newton’s law of gravity.
Didn’t matter what eye-catching logo had been splashed across the tail or under the belly of this jumbo bird. It still fit Eric’s definition of a damned rock, and rocks fell out of the sky, damn it.
There was no point talking statistics to him about how safe air travel was in comparison to automobile, train, or boat travel. He didn’t want to hear all that logic on a good day when he had both feet flat on the ground. Facts didn’t mean squat when a guy was dropping twenty thousand feet a minute out of a clear blue sky with nothing to say about it but splat and goodbye. Adios. Sayonara. Add rain, thunder, and lightning to the mix, and a paranoid man with a fear of flying didn’t stand a chance. Bring on a double dose of Dramamine. Or a Jack and Coke.
The flight to Amsterdam from JFK had been one jolting bump after another. Up and down. Side to side, and, every so often, the jet shifted in all four directions at the same time until his stomach screamed.
He steeled what was left of his ragged nerves, digging his fingers into the armrests just in time. The aerodynamically-designed bird bucked, and anyone not strapped in hit the ceiling. They deserved what they got. What were they thinking walking around?
Black clouds taunted at every window. Lightning flashed, too close for comfort. The atmosphere beyond the thin skin of this jumbo jet sounded like a warzone. Regularly scheduled, my ass. Fifteen hours to Amsterdam was not part of Eric’s regular schedule, not by a long shot. But there he was because, once again, his compassion had gotten the best of him.
Operation Find Finn started at the crack of dawn the day before with a curt bellow from his boss, Alex Stewart. “Sit room. Now.”
All hands on deck complied. Ex-Army. Ex-Marine. Ex-whatever. Alex hired mostly ex-Marines, a given considering his prior career in the Corps. Eric guessed that was to be expected, not that he minded, since he was ex-USMC himself, a medic and a damned good shot. He’d never done the scout sniper thing, but there he was, working for one of the best in a company of snipers. Once a rifleman always a rifleman.
They filed into the Situation room where Mother, aka Sasha Kennedy, The TEAM’s genius Girl Friday, was already seated and unusually somber. A chill prickled up Eric’s spine then. His gut clenched like it used to at the call of man down when he’d been active-duty.
Something wicked had come down to The TEAM. He felt it zero down on him. It didn’t help that most other agents were out of the office, already assigned and in the field. Zack Lennox in Cuba. Seth McCray somewhere in South America. Hunter Christian and Lee Hart on a black ops mission to only Alex knew where. Even Senior Agent Harley Mortimer was out of the country, no doubt in Afghanistan monitoring the spike in opium production for the United Nations.
Who didn’t see that coming after decades of war and failed promises from the international community?
Others were assigned to local operations and security details. That left two senior agents, Mark Houston and David Tao, and two junior agents, Eric Reynolds and Jordan Hannigan.
Mother and her assistant, Ember Dennison, didn’t count. Techies didn’t do field work.
Eric had no more than parked his butt when the big screen overhead flashed to life. The camera angle panned out, revealing the bastard running the show. Dressed in the black robes of the current terrorist plague sweeping the planet, his face was masked as he gripped his victim’s long, blond hair into a cruel topknot. The scimitar in his right hand cast blinding laser flashes at the camera lens.
But worse was the physical state of the poor kid on his knees. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. Dark, black lines crisscrossed his entire torso. Possibly burns. Maybe bloody welts. The victim had lost control of his bodily functions. Couldn’t catch a decent breath.
Probable internal bleeding or punctured lung.
Wide, fear-filled swollen eyes, the barely visible whites red with blood. Strangled whimpers. Grunts. The camera lens cut close to a view of the guy’s broken and bloody nose, his lips swollen and cut. His left front tooth was broken and jagged. His hands were bound in front of him, bloody stumps where three fingers had been clipped off. Both index fingers. One pinkie.
Eric’s trained medical mind automatically worked damage control on the graphic scene. Definite extremity trauma. Internal bleeding. God knew what else. This was a race against time. Hemorrhaging required sustained massive transfusions and tourniquets. Shock, hypothermia, and the victim’s unknown medical history could work against Eric no matter what he did. Pain control was a given. Damned rapid evac.
If Eric could’ve gotten to him in time. But he couldn’t, and it was happening again. Someone’s child was dying, and he couldn’t do a thing to stop it.
“I am Abdul-Mutaal! You have forty-eight hours to deliver Finn Powers,” the bastard towering over the victim demanded. “No more.”
Abdul-Mutaal. The terrorist-de-jour thought to be hiding in Syria.
“F-Finn,” the young man ground out, the shuddering panic in his voice unmistakable. “I’m... I’m sorry.”
Eric couldn’t bear to watch, but he did. With one swift stroke of that scimitar, the wicked deed was done. The camera lens caught the arterial spray as a young man a world away died. The bastard in charge pushed the poor kid’s body aside while he shook the decapitated head at the camera with one last vigorous, “Forty-eight hours!”
The video blacked out. Thank God.
Eric dug his fingernails into the heels of his palms, willing his soul back to center, and his heart to stop jackhammering. He’d seen crap like this before. It wasn’t the first beheading on live TV, and it wouldn’t be the last. Frustration filled his gut. Until that last act of barbaric cruelty, Eric knew he could’ve saved that young man. At least, he could’ve relieved his suffering.
Working for the owner of the elite covert surveillance company of ex-military snipers, The TEAM, often brought the harsh realities of the world into the Situation Room. But that? Cold-blooded murder was what it was. Damned brutal.
Whatever contract Alex had just signed, whatever promise he’d made to save the world, Eric wanted in. Abdul-Mutaal needed one of those close-up-and-personal come-to-Jesus meetings the Corps offered free of charge. With a .338 Lapua Magnum. 16.2 grams.
Now, damn it.
“The young man whose death you just witnessed was Phoenix Berglund, an American citizen and a student at the University of Amsterdam. We believe his murderer is Abdul-Mutaal,” Alex said, his palms also flat to the conference table. “Berglund’s body was found in the research lab where he worked, but he was tortured elsewhere.”
“Abdul-Mutaal’s damned nervy to carry out a beheading in an Amsterdam University,” Jordan muttered.
“He’s an asshole is what he is. Who sent the video?” Mark pushed back from the conference room table, his thick arms across his chest. He was a hard one to rattle, but even he’d turned a whiter shade of pale.
“Mutaal made the video, but one of Berglund’s friends stole it.” Mother’s voice was tight, her tone edgy. It wasn’t often The TEAM’s genius techie c
ame unraveled, but she was close, her manicured nails tapping a relentless clatter on the tabletop. “Phoenix and his friends were involved in some kind of a research project at the university, something to do with solar energy. They called it dynamic energy displacement.”
“Your hacker friend got a name?” Eric knew Mother walked the thin line between providing superior technical support and outright breaking the law. That she wasn’t behind bars proved her unique expertise. Hackers. The current version of Bonnie and Clyde, at least until the CIA and the folks at Langley turned them into federal agents or inmates at Leavenworth.
She glanced around the table, making eye contact with everyone present. Him last.
Eric’s sixth sense sprang to life. She didn’t want to name her hacker friend. Why not?
“Finn Powers,” Alex divulged what she couldn’t or wouldn’t. “He’s one of three young men Mother works with on her other job as a freelance game developer. All Americans. All living abroad and studying on a research grant in Amsterdam.”
Powers? Really? That got Eric’s undivided attention. Powers was his ex-wife’s maiden name. A proud name—until Shea Powers Reynolds ran away. Ditched him. Filed for divorce. What a bizarre coincidence.
The name alone was more than enough to make him wonder, like he had every day for the last two years. Where had Shea gone? Why hadn’t she contacted him since she’d left? Not that it mattered. He’d take her back in an instant if she’d let him. If he knew where she was.
He was just that stupid in love.
Alex drummed his fingers on the table, pulling Eric’s attention back to the Sit Room. “Mother received the video an hour ago. Finn witnessed Berglund’s murder and stole the SD card out of Abdul-Mutaal’s camera. That one act of courage preempted this bastard’s plan to release it to Al Jazeera for prime-time viewing. It was fast thinking to get one up on a psychopath like Abdul-Mutaal. He’s got to be pissed.”
Hunter (In the Company of Snipers Book 14) Page 38