“No!” she cried, the word torn from her raggedly.
“I’m going in after him.” It was Blue. “Pull this boat closer.”
“Sir, I can’t let you do that,” said a young man in a naval uniform. His face was pale. “If the chopper doesn’t pull you under, the water’s so cold, it’ll kill you. You won’t last more than five minutes before hypothermia sets in.”
“Pull the damned boat closer, Ensign,” Blue said, his voice as cold as the Alaskan water. “I’m a SEAL, and that’s my commander down there. I’m going after him.”
The water was cold as ice.
It roused Joe from his fog as it splashed him in the face.
Damn, he’d gone down. He didn’t remember going down. All he remembered was Ronnie—
Ronnie telling him that she wanted to…marry him?
The last pocket of air bubbled out of the helicopter cockpit.
No way was he going to die. Ronnie wanted to marry him. No way was he going to drown. Or bleed to death, damn it.
The water was cold as hell, but it would slow his bleeding.
All he had to do was get his arms and legs to work.
But he hurt.
Every single cell in his body hurt, and it took so much goddammed effort to lift even a finger.
This was worse than anything he’d ever experienced, worse even than Hell Week, that torturous final week of SEAL training that he’d lived through so many years ago.
He’d never wanted anything as badly as he’d wanted to be a SEAL. It had kept him going through the nonstop exertion, through the pain, through the torturous physical demands. “You got to want it badly enough,” one of his instructors had shouted at them, day after day, hour after hour. And Joe had. He’d wanted to be a SEAL. He’d wanted it badly enough.
He’d wanted to be a SEAL almost as much as he wanted Veronica St. John.
And she was there, up there, above the surface of that freezing water, waiting for him. All he had to do was kick his legs, push himself free and he would have her. Forever. All he had to do was want it badly enough….
Veronica stared at the water, at the place where first the helicopter and then Blue had disappeared.
Please, God, if you give me this, I’ll never ask for anything ever again….
Seconds ticked into one minute. Two. Three…
Was it possible for a man to hold his breath for this long, let alone search for a wounded, drowning man…?
Please, God.
And then, all at once, a body erupted from beneath the surface of the water. Veronica peered into the area lit by the searchlights. Was that one head or…
Two! Two heads! Blue had found Joe!
A cheer went up from the sailors on board the boat, and they quickly maneuvered closer to the two men, and pulled them out.
Dear God, it was Joe, and he was breathing. Veronica stood aside as the medics sliced his wet clothes from his body. Oh, Lord, he’d been shot in the abdomen, just above his hip. She watched, clutching her own blanket more tightly around her as he was wrapped in a blanket and an IV was attached to his arm.
“Cat was coming up as I was going down after him,” Blue said, respect heavy in his voice. “I think he would have made it, even without me. He didn’t want to die. Not today.”
Joe was floating in and out of consciousness, yet he turned his head, searching for something, searching for…
“Ronnie.” His voice was just a whisper, but he reached for her, and she took his hand.
“I’m here,” she said, pressing his fingers to her lips.
“Did you mean it?” He was fighting hard to remain conscious. He was fighting, and winning. “When you said you’d marry me?”
“Yes,” she said, fighting her own battle against the tears that threatened to escape.
Joe nodded. “You know, I’m not going to change,” he said. “I can’t pretend to be something I’m not. I’m not a prince or a duke or—”
Veronica cut him off with a kiss. “You’re my prince,” she said.
“Your parents are going to hate me.”
“My parents are going to love you,” she countered. “Nearly as much as I do.”
He smiled then, ignoring his pain, reaching up to touch the side of her face. “You really think this could work?”
“Do you love me?” Veronica asked.
“Absolutely.”
“Then it will work.” The boat was pulling up alongside of the USS Watkins, where a doctor was waiting. From what Veronica had gathered from the medics, they believed the bullet had passed through Joe’s body, narrowly missing his vital organs. He’d lost a lot of blood, and had to be stitched up and treated for infection, but it could have been worse. It could have been far worse.
Joe felt himself placed onto a stretcher. He had to release Ronnie’s hand as he was lifted up and onto the deck of the Watkins.
“I love you,” she called.
He was smiling as the doctor approached him, smiling as the nurse added painkiller to his intravenous tube, smiling as he gave in to the drug and let the darkness finally close in around him.
Joe stared up at the white ceiling in sick bay for a good long time before he figured out where he was and why he couldn’t move. He was still strapped down to a bed. He hurt like hell. He’d been shot. He’d been stitched up.
He’d been promised a lifetime filled with happiness and Veronica St. John’s beautiful smile.
Veronica Catalanotto. He smiled at the idea of her taking his name.
And then Blue was leaning over him, releasing the restraints. “Damn, Cat,” he said in his familiar drawl. “The doc said you were grinning like a fool when he brought you in here, and here you are again, smiling like a fox in a henhouse.”
“Where’s Ronnie?” Joe whispered. His throat was so dry, and his mouth felt gummy. He tried to moisten his dry lips with his tongue.
Blue turned away, murmuring something to the nurse before he turned back to Joe, lifting a cup of water to his friend’s lips. “She’s getting checked by the doctor,” he told Joe.
Joe’s smile disappeared, the soothing drink of water forgotten. “She okay?”
Blue nodded. “She’s just getting a blood test,” he said. “Apparently she needs one.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m hoping to get married,” Ronnie said, leaning forward to kiss him gently on the mouth. “That is, if you still have that ring. If you still want me.”
Joe gazed up at her. Her hair was down, loose and curling around her shoulders. She was wearing a sailor suit that was several sizes too large, white flared pants and a white shirt, sleeves rolled up several times. She was wearing no makeup, and her freshly scrubbed face looked impossibly young—and anxious—as she waited for his answer. “Hell, yes,” he somehow managed to say.
She smiled, and Joe felt his mouth curve up into an answering smile as he lost himself in the ocean color of her eyes. “Do you still want me?”
Blue moved quietly toward the door. “I guess I’ll leave you two a—”
Ronnie turned then, looking up at Joe’s XO and best friend. “Wait,” she said. “Please?” She looked back at Joe. “I’ll marry you, but there’s one condition.”
Blue shifted his weight uncomfortably.
“Anything,” Joe said to Veronica. “I’d promise you anything. Just name it.”
“It’s not something you can promise me,” she said. She looked up at Blue again, directly into his turquoise eyes. “I need Blue’s promise—to keep Joe safe and alive.”
Blue nodded slowly, taking her words seriously. “I’d die for him,” he said, matter-of-factly.
Veronica had seen them in action. She’d seen Blue dive into the icy Alaskan waters after Joe, and she knew he spoke the truth. It wasn’t going to make her fear for Joe’s safety disappear, but it was going to make it easier.
“I didn’t want to marry you because I was—I am—afraid that you’re going to get yourself killed,” she said, turning b
ack to Joe. “I knew I couldn’t ask you to leave the SEALs and…”
She saw his eyes narrow slightly as he understood her words. “Then…”
Veronica felt more than saw Blue slip from the room as she leaned forward to kiss Joe’s lips. “I wasn’t ‘slumming.”’ She mock shuddered. “Nasty expression, that.”
He laced his fingers through her hair, wariness and concern in his eyes. “I can’t leave the SEALs, baby—”
She silenced him with another kiss. “I know. I’m not asking you to. I’m not going to quit my job and become a career navy wife, either,” Veronica told Joe. “I’ll travel and work—the same as you. But whenever you can get leave time, I’ll be there.”
As she gazed into Joe’s midnight-dark eyes, the last of his reservations drained away, leaving only love—pure and powerful. But then he frowned slightly. “Your ring’s back in Little Creek,” he said.
“I don’t need a ring to know how much you love me,” Veronica whispered.
Joe touched his chest, realized he was wearing a hospital gown, then pressed the call button for the nurse.
A young man appeared almost instantly. “Problem, sir?”
“What happened to my uniform?” Joe demanded.
“There wasn’t much left of it after the medics cut it off you, sir.” The nurse gestured toward a small table just out of reach of the bed. “Your personal gear is in that drawer.”
“Thanks, pal,” Joe said.
“Can I get you anything, sir?”
“Just some privacy,” Joe told him, and the nurse left as quickly as he had come.
Joe turned to Veronica. “Check in that drawer for me, will you, baby?”
Veronica stood up and crossed to the table. She pulled open the drawer. There were three guns inside, several rounds of ammunition, something that looked decidedly like a hand grenade, a deadly-looking knife, several bills of large denominations, a handful of change…
“There should be a gold pin,” Joe said. “It’s called a ‘Budweiser.”’
A gold pin in the shape of an eagle with both an ocean trident and a gun, it was Joe’s SEAL pin, one of his most precious possessions. He’d gotten it on the day he graduated, the day he became a Navy SEAL. Veronica took it from the drawer. It felt solid and heavy in her hand as she carried it to Joe.
But he didn’t take it from her. He wrapped her fingers around it. “I want you to have it.”
Veronica stared at him.
“There are two things I’ve never given anyone,” he said quietly. “One is this pin. The other is my heart.” He smiled at her. “Now you got ’em both. Forever.”
He pulled her head down to him and kissed her so gently, so sweetly, so perfectly.
And Veronica realized again what she’d known for quite some time.
She had found her prince.
Prologue
Lieutenant Blue McCoy was the point man, leading the six other men of SEAL Team Ten’s Alpha Squad across the marshlike ground. He moved painstakingly slowly, inch by inch through the darkness, touching, feeling the soft, loamy earth; searching for booby traps and land mines before actually putting his weight down on any one spot.
He watched the shadows, scanning the brush in front of him, memorizing the placement of each faintly silhouetted leaf and branch, alert to even the most minute movement.
The sounds of the night surrounded him. Insects buzzed and clicked; a dog barked maybe a mile away. An owl called through the darkness, its eerie cry proclaiming itself lord of this nocturnal domain, king of this night world.
It was a world in which Blue McCoy belonged, a world where he could lead a group of men so silently and invisibly through the darkness that the crickets at their feet didn’t sense their presence.
It had taken them more than an hour to cross the open field. Five more yards and they’d be in the cover of the brush. They’d be able to move faster then. Faster, but no less cautiously.
Blue listened, so in tune with the land around him that he was the night. His heart beat slowly in time with the silent, age-old rhythm of the earth and he thought of nothing—nothing but survival. All the noises and sounds of the air force base where Alpha Squad had been just ten hours earlier had long since evaporated, leaving only the night. There were six other men behind him, but Blue heard not a sound from any of them. He knew they were there only from faith, but it was a faith in which he had no doubts. The other SEALs were guarding his back as he led them forward. He knew they would die to protect him, as certainly as he would give his life for them.
Blue sniffed the air and froze, catching a faint, musky odor. But a second sniff convinced him that it was only an animal, some kind of rodent that moved as silently through the night as he did. It wasn’t a human smell, and human animals were the prey he was hunting tonight.
Directly through the woods, dead ahead at twelve o’clock, forty yards distant, was a cabin. According to the spooks from FInCOM—the agents from the Federal Intelligence Commission—inside the cabin was United States Senator Mike Branford’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Karen. The latest infrared satellite photos of the cabin revealed that at least four members of the terrorist group that had kidnapped her were inside the cabin with her. Another ten people were sleeping in a second structure, twenty yards to the northeast. And two five-man units of terrorists patrolled the surrounding woods. Only minutes ago, one of the units had come within four feet of Blue and the Alpha Squad. The unit commander had lit a cigarette, tossing the smoking match inches from Blue’s hand before ordering his men to move on.
With their faces painted green and black, and with their intensive SEAL training, experience and discipline, Alpha Squad was invisible, embraced by the darkness, enshrouded by the cloak of night.
As the SEALs positioned themselves in the brush that surrounded the cabin, Blue turned to look at his commanding officer and good friend, Lieutenant Joe Catalanotto. Blue could barely see Joe Cat’s face in the darkness, but he saw the man’s nod.
Time to go.
Out of the corner of his eye, Blue caught the stealthy movement of Cowboy, Lucky, Bobby and Wes as they faded toward the northeast and the second structure. They were going to secure that building and neutralize the terrorists inside.
That left Joe Cat and Harvard cooling their heels outside the main cabin while Blue crept inside to snatch back the girl.
H. stood guard while Joe and Blue scanned the exterior of the cabin, in particular the window that was to be Blue’s insertion point, his way in.
There were no booby traps, no alarms, no extra security. That was because the quarter mile surrounding the cabin was loaded with booby traps, alarms and armed security patrols. It was also because Aldo Fricker, the terrorists’ leader, had forgotten the number-one rule: Never assume. The terrorists had left their vulnerable underbelly unprotected because they’d assumed that no one would be able to penetrate the fiercely guarded outer perimeters of their compound.
They were wrong.
Al Fricker, meet SEAL Team Ten’s Alpha Squad.
As Blue watched, Joe Cat quickly and quietly cut the pane of glass from the cabin’s window. Harvard gave Blue a boost up, and he was inside.
Blue did a quick scan of the interior with his night-vision glasses, quickly locating the senator’s young daughter. She was curled up in an old brass bed in the southeast corner of the room. From what he could see she was still alive. The four guards were in sleeping bags or stretched out on the bare floor near the door. Blue took off his NVs and waited several seconds for his eyes to grow accustomed to the dark again, listening to the quiet breathing of the sleeping guards. It wouldn’t do any good to wake the girl up while wearing the NVs, looking like some kind of alien from outer space. She was going to be frightened enough as it was.
He took four syringes from his battle vest and moved silently through the room, giving each of the guards a carefully dosed guaranteed good night’s sleep. He sealed the needles back up and packaged the now-empty syringes in a
bag marked Bio-hazardous Waste. A quick search of the cabin convinced him that no other guards were lurking, so he moved toward the senator’s daughter.
He flicked on his penlight, shielding the light in the palm of one hand as he looked down at the sleeping girl. She was curled in a fetal position, knees tucked into her chest, one arm up, wrist attached by handcuffs to the brass headboard of the bed. Her hair was tangled and knotted, and dirt and blood from abrasions streaked her face and bare arms and legs. She was wearing a pair of blue shorts and a sleeveless top. Both were badly torn.
The bastards had hurt her. Karen. Her name was Karen Branford. They’d beaten her. Probably raped her. Christ, she was fifteen years old.
Rage filled him. Hot, molten and deadly, Blue felt it seep through his body, under his skin, spreading out all the way to his fingers and toes. It was a familiar sensation in his line of business. Normally he welcomed it. But tonight his job wasn’t to fight back. Tonight his job was to take this battered little girl out of here and get her to safety.
When he adjusted his headset, pulling the lip microphone closer to his mouth, his voice was steady. “Cat,” he said almost silently to his commanding officer. “They hurt her.”
Joe Catalanotto cursed. “Bad?”
“Yeah.”
“Can she walk?”
“I don’t know,” Blue said.
He turned toward the girl again, sensing from the change in the sound of her breathing that she was awake. Awake and terrified.
Quickly he knelt down next to her, holding the penlight so that it lit his camouflaged face.
“I’m Lieutenant Blue McCoy, miss,” he said in a low voice. “I’m a U.S. Navy SEAL, and I’m here to bring you home.”
She stared at him, eyes wide, taking in his uniform, his gun, and he knew she didn’t understand.
“I’m an American sailor, Karen,” he said. “I’m a friend of your daddy’s, and I’m gonna get you outta here.”
At the mention of her father, understanding and hope flared simultaneously in her brown eyes. She had been clutching at her torn shirt in a futile attempt at modesty, but now she removed her hand to cover his light.
Tall, Dark and Dangerous Part 1 Page 26