Shadow in the Mountain (Shadow SEALs)

by KaLyn Cooper

  When the euphoric afterglow forced his mind to clear, he tucked the blanket around Xena and crawled out of bed to deal with the condom. When he returned, she was still asleep.

  I really should go into my own room and shower.

  Her lips quivered and settled into that soft smile of a contented woman. He’d put that smile on her face. He wanted to do it again.

  Ryker had always been fine with a one-night stand. Would that be good enough for Xena? Will she want more?

  He certainly hoped so.

  A quick glance at the clock told him they had time for round two. He checked to be sure a second condom was sitting on the nightstand before he crawled back into bed. Xena had rolled over on her side facing away from him, so he scooted in behind her, his chest to her back, spooning like longtime lovers.

  Knock. Knock.

  “Xena, time to wake up.” Blade’s voice cut through any sleep Ryker had been getting. He was instantly awake.

  Sometime after he fell asleep, Xena had rolled to face him, wrapping her arm around his waist. His erection bumped against the juncture of her thighs as though asking her to spread her legs and allow it in once again.

  Bam. Bam. Bam.

  “Xena. Wake up. We need to eat before we head up the mountain to prepare for the mission.” Blade’s voice was louder this time.

  Without opening her eyes, Xena yelled, “I’m awake.”

  “And I’m now deaf,” Ryker whispered.

  Xena’s eyes popped open and wide. They relaxed as soon as they met Ryker’s. “So, you’re still here?” She moved as though to stretch and instantly stopped. She smiled and took his cock in her hand. “Had I known this was waiting for me, I would’ve awakened sooner.”

  She stroked him and ran her thumb over the slit at the top. A small drop greeted her as she passed over a second time.

  “Xena,” Blade’s voice carried a warning. “Don’t you dare roll over and go back to sleep.”

  “I have no intention of going back to sleep.” She said loud enough so Blade could hear her but her gaze never left Riker’s. “I’ll be down in a little bit.”

  “You’re responsible for waking up the squid.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him.” She stroked him again as she grinned. “And he’s not a squid, he’s a frog.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what kind of animal he is.” Blade sounded irritated. “He’s your responsibility. I’ll see you in the dining room. I got shit to do.” His footsteps faded down the hallway.

  Thank God he was gone. Ryker let out a long sigh. “There for a minute I thought he was going to come into the room.”

  “He wouldn’t dare.” Fire flared in her eyes.

  “Is he going to kill me for sleeping with you?” Ryker certainly hoped not.

  “Probably,” Xena said flippantly.

  “What’s the deal between you two?” He propped his head onto the palm of his hand. “Do you two have some kind of an open relationship?” He didn’t like the idea of her sleeping with anybody else, especially Blade.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” She let go of his cock and mirrored his position.

  “You and Blade.” Ryker now worried he’d misread the entire situation. “The way you act together. It’s beyond friendly.”

  “Blade is like family to me. He’s my brother’s best friend. I’ve known him since he and Clint went to West Point. Sometimes he’s more protective of me than my own brothers, which is the way I think of him…as a brother.”

  “You’re not lovers?”

  “Hell. No,” she shot back. “The very thought of that has the biggest yuck factor.” She shivered.

  “Thank God. I was afraid I might get shot by friendly fire.” A huge weight lifted off Ryker.

  “You just might. I told you my brothers are very protective of me. Even though I’m better trained in special operations than anyone else in camp, they think of me as their smaller, weaker sister.” Then she added, “Except Blade and my team. They’ve seen me in enough combat situations to respect my abilities.”

  “What do you mean you’re better trained in SpecOps?” Ryker knew just by the way Blade moved that the man had honed skills.

  “Clint was Delta in the Army and Blade was the chopper pilot assigned to his company, so he was also Special Forces.” She stared at him for a long minute as though trying to decide what she could or couldn’t tell him.

  She finally shrugged. “After college, I joined the Navy and then got selected for top-secret training. I went to the Joint All-Female Special Operations School. We secretly went through SEAL training, from BUD/S all the way through Jump School. Then we had a few unique schools offered by the Army as well as the medical training from the Air Force’s Pararescue school. Then they sent us to the CIA for unique undercover training.”

  “We heard rumors of an all-female SpecOps team, but no one believed it.” Ryker went on, “SEAL training was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.” He suddenly had a new respect for her.

  “Me too. I’m still not very good at deep diving. To be honest, the mixed tank thing gives me pause.” She took another breath before she continued, “After training, I was assigned to the State Department where I was on a SpecOps team. For several years we rescued congressmen, or their kids, from places they never should have gone. It’s a good thing those idiots are only elected for two years at a time.”

  “Yeah, we’ve had a few of those, too.” Over his many years as a SEAL, he could name several. His hand wandered from her shoulder over the curve of her rib cage into the dip of her waist and over her hip, mapping her curves. Maybe he could talk her into a quickie before they had to leave.

  Xena continued with her story, “Once my Navy commitment was up, they offered me a job at the State Department, but I knew I wanted to come home and work with Daddy. Africa is a mess. There are so many good things that I can do here…get away with here. If I were back in the U.S., my hands would be tied with political bureaucracy. In the States, they wouldn’t allow me to hunt down the rebels and kill those sons of bitches who took your SEAL squad. Here, I’m in charge of the team.”

  A thought ran through his brain. In the SEALs they preferred to sneak in, rescue the high-value targets, and sneak out with as little gunfire as possible. “What are the rules of engagement?”

  Xena held his gaze with those gorgeous golden eyes that now had more brown flecks than when she was aroused. “The mission is to rescue your team. Charley doesn’t give a shit how many rebels die in that process. The current Ethiopian government doesn’t give a shit how many rebels meet God, or Allah, or their ancient ancestors. How we complete the mission is up to us.”

  She shifted closer to him and ran her fingers through his hair. “I’ll tell you right now, the men on my team have no tolerance for rebels. Many of their own families have suffered at the hands of the terrorists, and that’s what the president calls them. In places, they have killed every man, woman, and child in a village because their bloodline isn’t pure enough. The United Nations calls it ethnic cleansing. Within this household, we call it murder.”

  She laid her palm on his cheek, her fingers splayed through the hair on the side of his head. “No one here is going to think any less of you, me, or my team, if we are the only ones, besides your brother SEALs, who walk away from that camp alive.”

  “Good to know. Because I intend to kill the motherfucker who took them captive.” He gritted his teeth. “Then I’m going to hunt down every person involved in that ambush and the cover-up. I haven’t decided whether I’m going to torture them, kill them slowly, or just put a bullet through their head. No one will be safe from me.”

  All the color had drained from Xena’s pretty face.

  “I’m sorry, babe.” He pulled her in closer until they were chest to chest. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m not usually a violent, vengeful man, but this entire situation took so much from me—Ajax, and the rest of our SEAL squad. Somebody has to pay.”r />
  Xena lay very still in his arms.

  Did I fuck up? Maybe I shouldn’t have told her my plans.

  She leaned back until they were face-to-face. “I know there’s compassion in there somewhere. Promise me you won’t be so quick to judge.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes, but she quickly kissed his lips. “We need a shower.”

  Throwing off the covers, she leaped over his naked body. Halfway to the bathroom, she glanced over her shoulder. “If you’re going to come, grab that condom.” She raised one eyebrow and Ryker was on his feet. He swiped the foil packet off the nightstand and scooped her up on his way to ecstasy.

  Chapter 15

  Xena stared with disappointment at the large computer screen

  “There’s nothing there,” Van insisted as Xena, Ryker, Blade, Dell, Clint, and her father gathered around the business office desk at their private airport. “I made a half a dozen passes in both directions and nothing shows up on the thermal scan. Even if they were cold camping without any fires, the body heat of fifty men should show up as a bright red dot.”

  “What are these red dots?” Her father asked pointing to the screen.

  “My last pass was really low. Those are the people in Kidi who came out of their homes to identify the noise.” He expanded the picture on the screen. “Those were only ten people, and you can clearly see the heat generating from their homes. Fifty soldiers would be huge.”

  “You should show this to the Saudis,” Clint suggested. “I’m sure they would love to be able to see their enemies this clearly in the middle of the night.”

  Van slapped his older brother on the shoulder. “That’s the plan, big brother. Now, if I can only figure out a way to demonstrate the bombing capabilities of this bird, I could make a million dollars off the single sale.”

  Her father slapped the palms of his hands on the wooden desk making everything on the top jump. “Saddle up. We need eyes on. Xena, I want your team to jump in here.” He pointed to the most logical area for a camp.

  Her father indicated a campfire surrounded by six human-like red dots located near the main road through that section of mountains. “Clint, take your team here. I’m going to bet they’re bandits, not rebels, but they might know something either way.”

  “Dell, do we have enough drones to cover both areas?”

  “With infrared, barely.” At her father’s frown, Dell quickly added, “but I’ll make it work. I can establish a grid pattern and program them to—”

  “I don’t need to know how, just do it.” Digger stared at his computer geek. “I want you to take a good hard look before anybody jumps.”

  “You got it, Digger.” Dell spun on his heel and darted through the soundproof door into the command center.

  “Dad, do you want me high in the air?” Van asked.

  “Absolutely.” Adam Riggs stared at the screen. “And load up. If this turns into anything more than a sneak ‘n peek, I want you at your brother’s and sister’s backs with enough firepower to send anybody who dares to attack them all the way to hell.”

  Xena smacked Clint on the shoulder. “See, I told you Daddy loves us more.”

  Her older brother slung an arm across her shoulder and kissed the top of her head. “Take care of yourself out there.”

  “Right back at ya, big bro.” She’d never admit it to anyone, but she always worried every time someone in her family went into combat. Her family meant the world to her.

  “I’ll be watching everything from here.” Her dad tilted his head toward their new command center. It wasn’t much in Xena’s opinion compared to the operations center at the U.S. State Department. Her family didn’t need anywhere near that amount of equipment or people. For Africa, though, it was fucking incredible. Soundproof, huge flat screens, a communications center that would rival almost anything stateside, and completely invisible even to the men in her father’s army.

  The Riggs family exchanged hugs, as usual, before they walked out.

  “Alpha team. Ten minutes to drop.” Blade was behind the stick and obviously pissed off that he wasn’t about to parachute out the back of the CH 47 Chinook with her team. It was going to take some fancy flying over and through mountains after dropping Clint’s team at one site then her team—designated Beta team for this op—on the other side of the mountain range. Although their pilots were all highly qualified and combat tested, her dad was more comfortable with Blade as pilot.

  “Beta team, the bumblebees are picking up movement on your site, but it looks more like small animals.” Dell’s voice came through her headphones clearly. “Alpha team, eight tangoes, look to be sleeping.”

  “Bet they shit their pants when we wake them up.” Clint chuckled.

  “Video at oh-four-hundred,” Dell announced. “Beta primary, you’re responsible for the popcorn.”

  “Just because I’m female, what makes you think I know how to cook?” Xena snapped back.

  “Dell, trust me on this one, you don’t want her cooking anything,” her brother warned from twenty thousand feet in the night sky.

  Hydraulics squeaked and groaned when the rear ramp started to lower. Cold air rushed into the hold as the twelve men on Clint’s team lined up. Their backpacks contained a parachute and the pouch covering their chest held the reserve as they shuffled forward strapped into their harnesses. On Blake’s countdown, Clint finished the final pre-check. A minute later, they were gone. She couldn’t see the black parachutes in the moonless sky but heard the jumpmaster talking about wind shifts.

  “Beta primary, seven minutes to jump.” Blade didn’t bother closing the ramp.

  When Xena stood, the seven men on her team and Ryker lined up behind her. After their first jump together, she’d designated Wings as jumpmaster. She’d never seen anyone maneuver a parachute the way that man could, and he was so meticulous about gear. She also believed in leading from the front, so she was usually the first one out the door.

  Final equipment check.

  Xena was impressed at how well Ryker blended into her team. Many of the men who worked for her father were former special operators from the United States, Great Britain, and Australia. To work for Digger, English was the first criterion. He hired the locals from time to time but mostly as guides to a specific area. Even though he’d been in the country for nearly forty years, on and off, he still didn’t trust them. Hard lessons learned hard.

  “Beta primary, you have a go.” Blade gave the voice command because they hadn’t installed the light system as yet in this chopper. Although it could carry over fifty troops, it had more often been used as a cargo ship delivering guns and ammo. Thanks to its unique back ramp, it was the perfect vehicle that night.

  Xena stared at the darkness at the end of the ramp. She loved this part. Launching herself off the ramp, she moved quickly into a stable arch. The silence always struck her. One second she was inside the belly of a noisy military helicopter and in the next she was a human bird, flying high above the earth. On this jump, though, she wasn’t high enough to enjoy her flight but a few seconds. She immediately opened her chute which jerked her harness, grabbing her hips, slowing her descent. Glancing up, she checked that her chute had deployed completely. Her team, in all-black camouflage, could only be identified as small blurs against the stars. She slowed her chute to the point that a swift run would replace the traditional side roll upon returning to earth. They had landed in the farmer’s small field as expected.

  “Beta primary on the ground.” She pulled on the ropes, collapsing her chute as she walked forward. Each member of her team was responsible for his own chute since very few preferred the same style or manufacturer. No one other than her touched her chute.

  “Beta two on the ground.” Ryker had taken Blade’s designation for the op.

  “Beta three, boots on the ground and ready to par-tay.”

  When the count finished, Xena breathed out a slow sigh of relief. All kinds of shit could go bad jumping into an unknown landing zone in the dark
. So far, so good.

  It was a short two-mile hike to the area everyone agreed was most likely the rebel camp. Snarling wild animals could be heard a quarter of a mile away. Thank God for night vision goggles that could be switched to infrared.

  The scent of wet soil, decomposing trees, and rotting leaves was replaced by urine, decaying food, and human defecation. Whoever the leader of this camp was, did not have an ounce of basic camping etiquette. The establishment of human bodily fluids and food disposal should have been confined to a deep pit downwind.

  Quiet as mice, her team swept through the camp.

  “Fires have been out for at least two days,” Tracker announced once they were given the all-clear. “Tents were here, here, and here.” He walked into the woods and studied the trees before he ran his hands up and down several.

  Tracker, named for his uncanny ability, shook his head slowly from side to side. He glanced at Ryker. “Sorry, brother, they tied your friends to these trees.”

  “Motherfuckers,” Ryker said under his breath. “I swear to God I’m going to kill them all.”

  “Yeah, nah, I don’t think so, mate,” one of the two Aussies on her team smacked his hand down on top of Ryker’s shoulder. “You’re going to let us have a little fun killing the bloody arseholes. Anyone who would do this shit doesn’t deserve to live.”

  “Get some pictures and we’ll analyze everything once we get back to Eden.” Xena sniffed the air, praying she didn’t smell the unique scent of dead human bodies. Nothing but garbage, piss, and shit, as far she could tell. She stood beside Tracker and in a very low voice asked him to look for graves. Without a word, the man disappeared into the woods.

  “Beta four, I have a job for you.” The Brit with dark hair and hazel eyes spoke nearly as many local languages as she did. “Take beta six and go into the surrounding towns. Find out as much as you can about the rebels. We’re most concerned with numbers and where the fuck they went.” She glanced around at the carnage. “These are lazy assholes. They wouldn’t have gone far. Don’t bother going any farther than ten miles in any direction.”