When Kyle followed Cooper’s bony ass up the metal pull-down steps to the motor home, he noticed a new hand-painted sign to the right of the small front door curtain window, “Mi Casa Es Su Casa.” Kyle chuckled and thumped the tiny daisy drawn below it on the painted aluminum frame. It was someone’s calling card. From the style and lettering, Kyle recognized it as being done by Daisy, the buxom blonde from one of the tattoo parlors they frequented.
Son of a bitch. He’s nailing her.
Sometimes Coop just outdid himself. Every team guy who was single and half the married ones were trying to get into that young lady’s pants. Leave it to Coop.
The small space did smell flowery. Fredo was swearing and holding his nose.
“Lose the air freshener, man. It’s just gross, man.”
“After an hour it’ll smell like your pits, and then I’ll have to wear a mask.”
Kyle had to admit, the smell was a little obnoxious. “I can’t believe they actually like it this way. You better open some windows or we’re gonna pass out,” he said.
Cooper opened a window over the kitchen sink. “That’s all I’m doing, since it takes a boatload of gas to run the heater.”
Fredo tossed the bouquet of flowers out onto the parking lot, then poured the remaining water on top.
“Hey, you owe me five bucks for those, Fredo,” Cooper lashed out, grabbing back the vase.
“Got hay fever. Don’t you ever listen? Asthma, too. I wind up at the ER and you’re gonna pay for it.”
Kyle knew it wasn’t true. No way the Navy would have cleared him for SEAL duty with asthma or a severe case of hay fever. Every cell of Fredo’s body had been inspected and none had been found lacking.
Except for maybe some of his brain cells.
Cooper crawled over the dinette seat and inserted himself into the driver’s console. The passenger seat door was wired shut, so Kyle followed Cooper’s ass and dumped his bones into the passenger seat next to his teammate. Stuck to the dash were glued plastic dinosaurs and some of his favorite childhood toys like Skeletor, He-Man and Conan.
The babe-mobile spewed smoke out the back and coughed a few times before reaching a safe cruising speed of twenty-five miles an hour. By the time they got to Gunny’s, a trail of more than a dozen cars were backed up behind. When they pulled up to the curb, Cooper got honked at and was given a generous serving of one finger salutes.
Cooper looked like he hadn’t paid attention, but Kyle knew better.
Gunny was at his front door, locking up early.
“You ready to ride, Gunny?” Kyle said through the open window.
“You bet. Halfway thought you guys’d leave me behind.”
“Nope. Need a chaperone for these two.” Kyle tilted his head back as Gunny climbed aboard.
Gunny sat at the built-in dinette table with Fredo while Cooper punched the address into the GPS unit, then turned over the motor, which was reluctant to start. The machine backfired, sending two team guys on the street horizontal on the sidewalk. With a slow rumble and another backfire, the beast took off on its secret military mission, the sun just setting in an orange puddle on the inlet.
They drove up the coast for nearly half an hour, heading north, and then turned inland.
Kyle got his sat phone out of the black duty bag he’d brought, along with his night vision goggles and other equipment. “Reception here is terrible, but I got it boosted.” He showed the wire antennae running down the inside of his jacket. “The computer will track everything, too.” He pointed to the MAC plugged into the center console.
Coop was focused on driving, but nodded to the roadway, which had grown twisty. They were headed into small foothills.
“Coop, you’re gonna have to talk to your friend when we get there.”
Kyle got more nods.
Fredo looked worried. “So, Kyle, what are they looking for?”
“I’m thinking guns. Guns they can’t buy on the street.”
“But why take the girl?”
“I don’t think they wanted her. I think they want something from Armando.”
“Can’t believe he’d let himself get caught like that.”
“I think his sister told them about Armando. She’s less than discrete. I’m being kind,” Kyle said.
“Kid’s had it rough, from what I hear,” said Fredo. “Raped at fourteen. The dude woulda died, too, if the cops hadn’t gotten there in time and stopped Mama Guzman. That woman’s a pistol.”
Cooper laughed. “Well, no wonder you’re scared shitless about asking Mia out to dinner, Fredo.”
“I never said that.” Fredo’s defensive tone gave him away. Kyle hadn’t noticed this little soap opera. Knowing Fredo, the athletic SEAL had a personal reason to protect her from the lowlifes she’d been hanging around with. That would be like him. But only if her mama approved.
They drove for another few minutes in silence. Kyle thought out loud. “I think Armando didn’t expect to meet anyone but Mia. Otherwise, he would have been more prepared.” It was the only thing that did make sense in this scenario.
“Except that he didn’t check in with you or Timmons at ProDev,” Cooper yelled over the noise of the engine.
“Exactly. He knew I’d go look for him if he disappeared.”
“I don’t like it. Going after civilians,” Fredo said.
“Don’t have to. We can let you out right here, if you want. You’re either in or out.”
“No. I’m in. I just don’t like it.”
“They’re dangerous, bad people,” said Kyle. “They kidnap and terrorize innocents like some of the guys we saw overseas, except these guys do it for the money. No religious morals here.”
Fredo nodded his head. “Yeah, and they expect to live about as long as the sand rebels do.”
“Without the glory,” Kyle added.
“Or the virgins.” Cooper turned and grinned at them.
Kyle was thinking about Mia and what her mother had told him. Pregnant with the bad guy’s baby. That made it more complicated. He hoped none of his team would have to sacrifice their lives or sustain major injuries just to save Caesar’s offspring.
What a fucked up twist of fate that would be.
The motor droned on with mind-numbing vibrations. Kyle lost track of time. They turned off the main road and onto a dirt trail that wound through a dense, unmarred forest of small saplings. A young branch slapped the side of the aluminum shell, sounding like a gunshot, sending everyone but Coop to their feet. Cooper allowed the beast to idle in a crawl. The hauler snaked through the foliage, which grew sparser.
Kyle leaned back and stared at the ceiling. It had gotten dark outside. He’d been lulled to near sleep by the bouncing and rocking of the clumsy vehicle.
“Coop, how come you know about all these places?” Fredo wanted to know.
“Boy Scouts. This was an old scout camp. I came every summer. That’s how come I wanted to join the Navy. I saw those guys one day running down the beach and thought to myself, that’s what I wanted to do.”
“Yeah, being a SEAL is all beach and babes, right?” Fredo gave a smirk.
“Little did your parents know,” Gunny added.
“Yeah, they freaked. Thought I’d get excited about the San Diego area and decide to go to college here. Maybe settle down. They always wanted to retire here. Farming is a hard life.”
That was an understatement, Kyle thought, recalling some of Cooper’s stories.
Fredo closed his eyes and tried to doze off. Kyle thought Gunny was in pain from the jostling around and couldn’t fall asleep, so Kyle took advantage of a few minutes rest. It felt like he’d just closed his eyes when he heard a thump.
They had stopped.
“Okay. We’re a click away.” Cooper turned and faced the trio. “I’m gonna call Morris.”
Cooper got out slammed the door, rocking the aluminum frame, which started Fredo fully awake. He looked in panic at Kyle, his hand instinctively reaching for his Benchmade
knife.
“Coop’s calling his friend,” Kyle said.
Fredo seemed relieved but stayed alert. Both of them looked outside the windows. No lights were visible anywhere.
“Black as hell out here,” Fredo said.
“Black is beautiful,” Kyle said. Using state-of-the-art night vision equipment would give them a real advantage.
Before Fredo could respond, Cooper was inside the cabin. “No change in the position of the cell phone. Battery still sending out signals.” He looked down as he slipped the phone back in his pocket. “We gotta plan for the possibility that perhaps she’s dead. That could be why the signal hasn’t moved.”
“Don’t think so,” Kyle said. “If Mia were dead, Armando would have done something to draw attention. He’s being stealth because they’re alive and he wants it to stay that way.”
“He’d have taken out a bunch of the bad guys,” Fredo added.
They pulled into an abandoned campground a few hundred feet from the turnoff. Small shacks were built around a half-acre open area with that had an old, crumbling stone fire pit built in the center.
They transferred their gear from their duty bags that had been stored below the couch cushions to backpacks.
“Okay, Gunny. You stay with the ship,” Kyle announced.
“Not sure I can get into that seat,” Gunny said as he pointed to the driver swivel chair that looked more like his dad’s old La-Z-Boy. When Kyle was a boy, his dad wouldn’t let anyone else sit in it. But then, after all the drool and vomit Kyle’s mom had cleaned off the surface over the years, no one had wanted to.
Cooper was helpful. “No problemo, Gunny. You’ll not have to drive it. But I’m leaving the keys, just in case. Just watch her for me a bit. I’d offer to load up some triple Xers on the CD player here, but the battery is acting wonky. Don’t want to chance it.”
“I don’t watch the stuff anyway.”
Kyle knew the only TV Gunny watched was the Military Channel, which ran 24/7 at the gym.
The three SEALs put on Kevlar vests and blacked their faces. They positioned their night goggles after killing all the lights. Cooper had obtained a 9mm SigSauer P225 for Kyle. Fredo and Cooper had their H&K “USC” .45.
“Gunny, if I hear you honk the horn twice, I’ll know we can’t return, got it? Need to know if we’re walking into something,” Kyle said to his older and unofficial fifth member of the team.
“That I can do.”
“That means you’re on your own. And the first call you should make is to Timmons.”
“Will do. But you come back soon, ’cause I’m fucking scared of the dark.”
Everyone chuckled. Then it was down to business. Kyle and his team finished their preparations. No one spoke. The hauler was filled with sounds of zipping and Velcro being separated and smoothed over.
Gunny picked up a paperback book that had a near-naked man on the cover. “Shit, Coop. I didn’t know you was gay.”
Cooper grabbed the book, obviously embarrassed. His face was a shade of peach Kyle had never seen.
“It’s a romance novel.” He pointed to a woman standing behind the hunk on the cover. “See? Besides, it isn’t mine. Someone left it behind.”
“Uh huh. Sure,” Fredo added.
The plan was to go in quietly, now that darkness had fallen, and grab Armando and Mia, if she was there, and then get out before anyone found them. Kyle knew they had to avoid any big firefight. And they absolutely couldn’t get captured.
They left the cab of the hauler and dove into the forest with less noise than an owl’s wing flap. They jogged for nearly twenty minutes.
The trio traveled through low-lying brush, using their night vision goggles. Eyes of small animals and one pair of deer flashed before them as they kept to occasional outcroppings of rocks and tree stubs. The area had been forest at one time, but a recent fire had eliminated any semblance of the lush wilderness it had once been. Kyle could still smell the charred remains of scorched trees.
They came upon a clearing and a lighted cabin, with gray smoke barely visible snaking up from the chimney behind. Two black Suburbans were parked out front, along with Armando’s Land Rover. There was no sign of the brown sedan. Kyle wasn’t happy with this.
The front door to the cabin opened and a male figure stepped out, profiled by the warm yellow candlelight from inside. The man, with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder, scanned the darkness. He unzipped his pants and urinated. The three of them stayed very still, waiting until he finished his business. He went back inside and slammed the door shut. They heard the click of a lock as it was secured.
Kyle went around the back of the cabin as Fredo and Cooper waited in place, scanning for new arrivals. He pulled up his black facemask to cover every inch of exposed skin. Coupled with the goggles that covered his eyes, nothing of his skin showed in the dim light of a half moon beginning to travel above the horizon. His shadow crouched at the backside of the structure as he slowly looked through one window. He caught a glimpse of Armando, asleep, his hands in handcuffs, chained to a large metal hook drilled into a four-by-eight wooden beam. He’d been beaten; his usually handsome face was swollen around the eyes and cheeks. A bloody slit extended from his lower lip down to his chin. But Kyle didn’t see a puddle of blood anywhere on the floor or blood sprays splattered along the wall, which was what he’d been half expecting, which relieved him.
A male figure entered the doorway to the room and Kyle ducked just in time to avoid looking into the eyes of a male figure.
Kyle peered back into the window. The man was administering a shot to Armando. Kyle suspected it might be heroin, or something to keep Armando quiet or planning an escape. He could see the disgusted expression on Armando’s face as the drug took effect. His eyes opened just slightly wider, two little sparkling slits of dark pain. Armando’s gaze connected with Kyle’s and registered. Armando’s smile was wide as he bobbed his head to the left to let Kyle know he saw him.
“You like this shit, don’t you, hero boy?” The heavily accented man kicked Armando in the gut.
Armando retched, and then raised his head up with another wide grin. “Oh, yeah. I like it all right. I’m dreaming of peeling your skin off in strips and cooking it like bacon, man.”
Armando got another kick in the gut for that one.
“Yum,” Armando said, then spat out blood onto the man’s shoes.
Kyle figured Armando was going to get a fist and probably more kicks, but the phone rang, and the man went after it. Left alone, Armando nodded to his left twice in quick succession, indicating Mia was probably in the next room.
Kyle silently crept to the other window and saw Mia, her arms cuffed up over her head and her ankles spread and cuffed to the iron bed frame. She was covered with a dirty blanket. Her sleep was deep.
God, hope they didn’t drug her, too.
Kyle thought he heard a vehicle in the distance. He adjusted his goggles and scanned the forest, but couldn’t detect a light source. He ran near soundlessly through the brush until he reached Cooper and Fredo.
“You hear that?” he asked.
“Yeah, sounded a ways off, though. Came from there,” Coop whispered, nodding toward the motor home. Kyle recognized a slight waver to his buddy’s voice. The last time he’d heard it they’d been laying on their bellies on a rooftop in Afghanistan.
Kyle knew if something happened to the motor home, they’d have to wing it in the woods. But they had gear and had been trained to improvise, to use what was around them. It would be a minor inconvenience for them, but might put Gunny in harm’s way. It wasn’t anything he could dwell on right now.
At least they weren’t in the frozen tundra in Alaska, where they’d been trained.
Kyle began making a plan, assuming there were at least two bad guys in the house. Perhaps more in the woods. Definitely more coming. Though outnumbered, at least they had the element of surprise on their side. And so far, they didn’t have anyone shooting at them.
Chapter 13
Christy had spent a restless morning cleaning her condo. Again.
Twice in one week? I’m turning into my mother.
But she knew she’d have to step outside her cocoon eventually and face the real world. She wouldn’t be looking for anyone to take the SEALs place. Just something to distract her thoughts until her heart could heal.
If that was even possible.
She thought about calling Marla, but didn’t need the questions she knew would come. She needed an intense workout, though, and Marla, the toughest of the personal training staff, would push her as hard as she wanted to go. And then ask all her questions.
So be it. Christy really didn’t want to be alone. And maybe after the workout, she’d even think up some answers that might make some sense.
Marla agreed to meet her at the gym an hour before closing. She put off the trainer’s sharp queries, promising to catch her up later.
She grabbed her keys, loaded her gym bag for later, and left it on her bed.
Though she knew it wasn’t wise, she needed to go look for Kyle. He was probably occupied with searching for Armando, but she hoped for a chance encounter. Or perhaps word would get back to him she was looking for him again.
Will this send him away permanently? She decided it didn’t matter.
Her hallway was deserted. Downstairs in the garage, it was deathly quiet. A pair of finches had traveled into the huge underground structure and made a nest. She heard the peeping of young life echoing faintly in the cold, gray cave of the bowels of her complex. It took away some of her apprehension.
Why can’t I relax?
It wasn’t as if she was in any danger. Kyle was the one who was doing all the exciting stuff. Christy was a Realtor. The only thing she had to do was land on her feet after a rocky first week at the company. Time would heal her jitters. If Patterson Realty wasn’t going to start getting comfortable right away, she’d move on. She would try another office. Make another fresh start.
Accidental SEAL (SEAL Brotherhood #1) Page 12