The SEAL's Special Mission

by Rogenna Brewer

  “Ben.” She motioned him back toward her.

  “I just went.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud, Mal. Who’s the one being the baby here?” Nash handed over the car keys.

  Mallory took her time in the bathroom. A glimpse of her disheveled appearance in the mirror had her wondering why the owner hadn’t called the authorities on sight. All three of them were a mess. She took her time tidying up as best she could.

  Nash knocked on the door. “Hurry it up in there.”

  Mal continued to take her time. She had a gun, she had the keys to the Tahoe—this was really the best shot they were going to have of getting away from him.

  He continued to pound the door with impatience.

  “Just a minute.”

  Could she do it? Could she shoot Nash this time, without any hesitation?

  With Ben standing right there? It was still Nash after all, and if she wavered even for a second, he’d take advantage of that weakness. And then there was Ben.... No, she couldn’t shoot his father in front of him.

  “Mal.” This time when he rattled the door, he tested the knob.

  She ignored him as a new idea began to form. She didn’t actually have to kill him or even shoot him for this plan to work. She’d almost forgotten she still had her handcuffs attached to the back of her belt. She picked up the hubcap and tested its weight. Not heavy, but solid. Unlocking the door as quickly and quietly as possible, she stepped back and waited for Nash to grow impatient again.

  This time when he rattled the door, he found it unlocked and burst in. Mal was ready for him. She clocked him hard on the back of the head with the hubcap. His head hit the mirror and the glass shattered. She winced but took advantage of the situation and pounded him again. He went down hard, hitting the sink on his way down.

  Maybe it would have been kinder to shoot him.

  She slapped one cuff to his wrist and the other to the pipe beneath the sink.

  Ben stood in the doorway looking horrified.

  “Ben.” She held up her hand to keep him outside. Nash was Ben’s father after all—the boy didn’t need to see him like this. Of course, he didn’t need to see any of what he’d already been witness to today. Crouching down, she checked Nash’s pulse. Rapid, thready and far too strong for her liking.

  Okay, so she hadn’t killed him. That was good. But, God, he was burning up.

  His dark T-shirt was caked in blood and she inched it up to find an angry red wound. The sutures looked professional enough, but a couple of them had ripped open. She felt a moment of guilt for punching him there and for what she was about to do. She rolled him to his side and grabbed both guns tucked to his back. One was her SIG and the other a Glock.

  “Should I call 911?” Ben asked from the doorway.

  “No, go!” She directed him back to the SUV and grabbed the prepaid phone package that had gone flying across the floor. She hurried outside and tossed the hubcap into the ditch. Snatching Ben by the hand, she hurried him toward the truck.

  She couldn’t blame him for not wanting to leave Nash. He didn’t know his father the way she did—hadn’t even met the man until today. Ben slowed her down long enough to grab his backpack from the backseat.

  He stood stubbornly outside the open passenger door.

  All she could think about was getting him buckled in and backtracking to safety. She needed to call Galena—someone she could trust to give her information. Other than that she did not have a plan.

  Home was not an option.

  Ben shook off her hand as she urged him to climb into the SUV. “But he’s hurt bad—” The boy appeared to be under the assumption that they had to save Nash.

  “Get in the car,” she ordered.

  “You hurt him.”

  “He’ll be fine. In the car now, Ben.” He climbed in and slammed his door. She ran to the driver’s side and climbed in behind the wheel. Instead of putting the key in the ignition, she attempted to saw into the tamper-proof packaging of the prepaid cell phone with the key. “We’ll call for help and they’ll send someone.”

  To apprehend him.

  Ben crossed his arms stubbornly.

  She saw the skepticism in his brown eyes as he glared at her from the passenger seat. “He’s tough,” she reminded him. “You have no idea how tough, Ben.”

  Mal grew increasingly frustrated with the phone’s packaging.

  “Navy SEAL tough? Or ninja tough?”

  She responded with a sad smile. “Navy SEAL tough.”

  Tough enough he’d chew off his own hand at the wrist to escape those cuffs. She didn’t say that out loud, but she knew Nash would escape—or die trying. She checked the locked bathroom door in the rearview mirror as if expecting him to burst through the door at any moment. Just in case, she put the key in the ignition and locked all the doors before trying to open the burn phone package again.

  He would die alone in that bathroom.

  Mal pushed the thought from her head...or at least she tried to.

  Nash was a Navy SEAL—or an ex–Navy SEAL, whatever—but he wasn’t superhuman. He’d been shot up, cut up, sewn up and then beat up—that last one by her. Like a Timex watch, he’d take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’. Normally. But he’d been cycling through chills, fever and sweats. Infection threatened to take him down.

  That’s one of the reasons she’d had him pull over into the gas station—because it wasn’t safe for him to be behind the wheel of a vehicle in his condition. And despite being able to pull off his good ol’ boy act inside the store, he hadn’t even had the strength to fend her off when she’d mugged him in the bathroom—and it wasn’t only because she’d taken him by surprise.

  By cuffing him to the sink, she wasn’t even giving him a fighting chance if someone other than the Feds were after him.

  “We can’t just leave him?” Ben echoed her concerns.

  “Yes, we can.” She grew increasingly frustrated with the burn phone packaging. She stopped taking her frustrations out on the plastic and instead looked into Ben’s pleading eyes. He sat quietly beside her with the first aid kit in his lap.

  “He didn’t leave us.” He extended his cell phone, the one she’d given him to carry in his backpack for emergencies.

  She had no idea he’d had it on him the whole time. Silently sending out a signal from every cell tower they’d passed. Anyone with the right equipment could track them through GPS. Anyone with her cell phone—the one she’d left on the kitchen counter back home—could track him instantly. Because of the child safety app she’d downloaded to both their smartphones.

  Her heart threatened to hammer right out of her chest.

  The very real threat of childhood abduction was why she’d gotten him a cell phone in the first place. Someone or some entity was probably tracking them right now. In order to rescue them.

  So why was every muscle in her body gearing up to run?

  Mal forced a smile for Ben so he wouldn’t sense her fear. “We’ll get him help. I promise.”

  She had a few numbers programmed into his phone. Her cell. Her work. His school. Jackie, a neighbor and a couple of Ben’s friends.

  Mal autodialed her own cell phone.

  “Where the hell are you?” her boss—Special Agent in Charge David Glaze—roared into her ear.

  Not, How the hell are you? Or, Are you all right, Mal? Or even, Is Ben with you?

  But, where the hell are you?

  He must have some idea—he’d answered her phone.

  Maybe not their exact location. But dot-on-a-map close—highway exit close.

  “We’re fine. How’s Stan? Is Tyler there with you?” She tried hard not to let his response rattle her. “I have something I want to say to say to—”

  “Morgan’s in surgery. Where’s th
e son of a bitch who shot him? Is he with you?”

  Mal chose her words carefully. “I have Nash in custody, yes. Are you saying he shot Stan?” Of course it’s what she believed herself. She simply wanted to confirm it with her boss. Because then maybe she could convince herself she was doing the right thing leaving Nash behind.

  So why did it all feel so wrong?

  Ben shook his head frantically.

  “Yes, I am. Who the hell else would have?” Glaze asked. “Where can we pick him up?”

  She kept an eye on the dashboard clock counting down the seconds. No doubt the call was being traced. “I’d really like to speak with someone from the Marshal Service to arrange transport. He’s hurt—”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Glaze cut her off.

  Mal hesitated. She glanced at Ben. Glanced across the highway at the brightly lit truck stop. “We’re at the Kum and Go.”

  She broke the connection before he could tell her to stay on the phone.

  What the hell was wrong with her?

  She’d just lied to the FBI special agent in charge of the Denver field office.

  Mal ripped the battery and the SIM card from Ben’s phone. Cracking the car door, she tossed them both to the trash barrel at the pump.

  “You broke my phone.”

  “Yes, yes, I did.” She tossed the shell to the floorboard at his feet. “It’s okay,” she reassured him. “We’ll get you a new one.”

  In reality, she had no idea what the hell she was doing. She was acting on pure gut instinct right now. She closed her door, put the key in the ignition and slammed the Tahoe in Reverse until she was even with the bathroom door.

  Then she scrambled for the ditch where she’d thrown the restroom key.

  It was a wonder Smirky Guy hadn’t popped his head out to see what she was doing with his precious hubcap.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  NASH DRIFTED IN and out of consciousness, trying to find a reason to care that Mal had left him chained to the sink. He’d come to the realization that she and Ben were better off without him. Mal was smart. She wouldn’t head home.

  But she would pick up a phone and call someone.

  He saw the empty plastic bag across the floor.

  Damn it. She had his prepaid phone.

  He pulled against the chain—a weak test of what little strength he had left—and winced against the pain in his side. Wouldn’t his SEAL BUD/S get a kick out of this? Sidelined by a one-inch-diameter pipe.

  Holding his side with his free hand, Nash took a deep breath, grabbed the pipe with his restrained hand and yanked. The water pipe gave enough to squirt him in the face.

  Yeah, should have closed that valve first.

  He reached over to shut it off now.

  The cold soak and the sound of someone fiddling with the door gave him the strength he needed and with one more jerk he freed himself. He was on his feet, ready for a fight with the length of pipe in his hand, as the bathroom door swung open.

  “Nash?” Mal saw the pipe and flinched.

  He stayed his hand and tossed the piece of plumbing aside in disgust. As if he’d ever hit her. A well-deserved spanking, maybe.

  As much as he wanted to put her over his knee right now, he restrained himself from doing just that. “You’re back.”

  “We need to leave now.”

  Hearing the urgency in her voice, he straightened immediately. “What’s up?”

  “Ben had his cell phone.”

  “What little boy has his own cell phone?” What idiot didn’t check the kid’s backpack? Or pockets? Nash put a hand on Mal’s back and steered her outside. Ben was waiting in the car. “Where is it now?”

  “I pulled the battery and ditched it. It gets worse,” she reassured him. “I dialed my cell phone and my boss answered. I’m pretty sure all that fuss at the Kum and Go is for us.” As they spoke, the flashing lights of no less than six squad cars and a helicopter with its searchlight on were converging on the well-lit gas station across the highway.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here.” Nash opened the passenger door for her and motioned for Ben to crawl into the backseat. “Take this cuff off me. I’ll drive.”

  “No,” she said. “I’m a federal agent and as far as I know you’re a fugitive. I just put my career on the line for you, Nash. And though I’m not going to hand you over until I figure out what’s going on and can ensure your safety, you are in my custody now. Put the other cuff on.”

  “You can’t be serious—”

  She drew her firearm. “Do it now. Or so help me I will get the cavalry’s attention.”

  He hesitated as he weighed his odds of successfully disarming her.

  Then she lowered her weapon. “You can trust me, Nash. You have to trust me.”

  Ben pressed his nose up against the glass.

  Nash slapped the other cuff on his free wrist and held up his hand. “Satisfied? I’m only doing this because we don’t have time to argue.” Nash promised an argument later.

  Satisfied with his compromise, Mal rounded the car to the driver’s side. While he settled in to the passenger seat, she climbed behind the wheel. Stubborn woman.

  “Where to?” she asked. They sat at the back of the lot with the headlights off.

  “You’re asking me?” Nash said.

  “Yes, you. Coronado?”

  “Not a good idea right now.” The scene at the Kum and Go seemed to be driving business to the little mom-and-pop stop as the parking lot was much busier than when they’d first arrived. “Wait until the next car leaves and then turn on your lights and follow the driver out to the highway.”

  Mal waited for the next car to leave and did as she’d been told. At the intersection the car ahead of them got in the turn lane to head west. “East,” he said. “We need to lie low for a while. Head back toward Denver.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding?”

  “They will track us to the gas station. We need to throw them off our tail. We can only hope they assume we continued west thanks to your attempted map purchase.”

  More cars converged on the intersection as she merged onto the highway headed east. Nash decided it was just as well she was driving—it kept his shooting hand free. He kept his eyes peeled as they blended into traffic without incident.

  Ben tapped him on the shoulder. “We got this for you.”

  Nash took the white box with the red cross.

  He didn’t know what to say to the kid. Clearing his throat, he went for the obvious. “Thank you.”

  He caught Mal’s glance at the rearview mirror toward Ben. He could guess whose idea it was to come back for him. Not hers. But if she hadn’t come back, he might never have seen her or Ben again.

  “Ben, buckle up,” she said. “You, too.” She raised an eyebrow in his direction. “And just as soon as we get wherever it is we’re headed, you’re going to tell me everything.”

  She even sounded like a mom.

  * * *

  THEY DROVE IN silence for what seemed like hours, once again passing the junction for northbound I-70 and then taking a series of smaller state and U.S. highways into the backcountry this time. Even Mallory, who’d lived in Colorado all her life, started to lose track of the signage along the unlit roads and simply followed Nash’s directions.

  They’d left Denver around seven o’clock that evening, and it was now well after midnight. “I’m starting to feel lost,” she admitted. “Where exactly are we going?”

  “Near Leadville. I know a cabin where we can hole up for a bit.”

  “We passed Leadville a while ago.”

  “Are we lost?” Ben leaned forward in his seat.

  “Take the next exit,” Nash said from beneath his ball cap. Mallory would have thought he was
sleeping—or dead—if it weren’t for the fact that he continued to bark out orders. More than likely he was still sulking because she’d refused to remove his handcuffs. Nash sat up, looking more haggard than rested and plopped his hat on Ben’s head. “If you see a sign for Rock Springs,” he said to her, “follow it.”

  She felt a twinge of guilt. The man was probably in more pain than she’d know how to deal with. Maybe she should set him free of the cuffs. Hello, since when do we have sympathy for your sister’s killer? that little voice inside her head started to squawk. If the man went and got himself shot, it would only be because he deserved it.

  Mallory hardened her heart.

  “I thought you knew where we were going.” She merged onto the off-ramp without signaling, just to make sure they weren’t being followed. Even though Nash assured her more than once that they weren’t.

  And since they were no longer on a major artery and a tail would have been easy to spot.

  In fact, the blackness was so thick up here she had to switch on the high beams.

  “I know where we’re going, Mal. Just never been there before.”

  “Who owns this cabin?”

  “No one I know.” Even in the soft glow of the dashboard lights, he could tell she’d cast a sideways glance at him. “Let’s put it this way, no one who’d likely be traced back to either of us. But maybe someone who won’t mind us staying there.”

  “Yeah, that’s real helpful.”

  “Rock Springs.” Ben pointed to the reflective road sign.

  “Good eye,” Nash complimented Ben, and the boy glowed brighter than the retroreflective sheeting making up the sign. This was what he’d been missing all these years without a mother and a father.

  No. Ben had a mother. He had her.

  And in every way that mattered, she was as good a substitute mom as Cara would have wanted for her son. Maybe it was time she got serious about finding a man that would fit into their lives so that Ben would have a role model and so she’d have—have a...what? If she knew what she wanted, maybe finding the right man wouldn’t be so difficult. Who was she kidding?

  Right now, as a mother on the run, she figured her future prospects would be limited to criminals. She’d gone from being a victim to being a fugitive with one lie to her boss. No, that wasn’t quite true. She wasn’t breaking any laws. She was a federal agent and had every right to ensure a fugitive’s safety—as well as her own and that of her son—before handing Nash back over to the U.S. Marshal Service.