by Ronie Kendig
Except Roark’s.
“I love you, Canyon.” Why hadn’t he returned the words?
Because he hadn’t been sure. Or maybe she was right—it was fear. Fear of failing her. Which he had.
Where was she now? What was happening?
He gripped his head. Thinking about that would drive him mad. Head in his hands, he clenched his eyes, pain pinching his nose. He worked through options, trying to find a way back. Hopping a flight wouldn’t work. The military probably wouldn’t let them board another aircraft for a very long time.
“Listen up,” an airman shouted from the front. “Touchdown in twenty. You’ll be escorted off the base. If you attempt to return, you will be arrested and charges filed.”
Black fury pressed into Canyon’s already foul mood. Criminals. They were treating them like common criminals. He glanced to the side and got nailed with one of the ugliest glares he’d ever seen come from Max.
Let the guy be ticked. He’d know a little of what Canyon felt, considering they’d dragged him across several bodies of water and hundreds of miles from Roark.
Augh! Fingers threaded, he squeezed hard. Several knuckles cracked.
His ears popped as they descended toward the base. Tires screeched on the landing strip at Langley AFB, and he could just imagine the blackened skid marks—so similar to those left on his heart for abandoning Roark.
Hang on, Roark. Somehow … somehow I’ll find you.
Passport was still good. He could catch a flight down to Venezuela, rent a vehicle. Somehow get some weapons. Would any of his former GB buddies help? Too bad Navas was an enemy combatant. Canyon would have looked the guy up in a heartbeat. But if he could get down there, he’d make sure to look the guy up … and settle the score.
“Revenge is mine.”
Canyon tensed, sensing God’s warning. Yet wouldn’t God use someone to carry out that judgment? My name’s first on the volunteer list.
They disembarked and military police herded them into the back of a truck like cattle. Climbing aboard behind Cowboy, Canyon kept his head down and mouth shut. Less chance of a fight, of widening the gap that had stretched between him and the men he’d begun to think of as brothers.
He snorted.
Yeah, just like brothers. He and Range hadn’t exactly been the best of friends. Competitive, argumentative, combative.
Axles groaned and creaked as the truck lumbered across the base toward the barbed-wire perimeter. Darkness huddled in ambush on the other side. Waiting for the team. Waiting for the Air Force to abandon them.
“How’re we getting back to the Shack?” the Kid hollered over the engine and wind noise.
Nobody answered. Not out of rudeness but because discussing options in front of anyone outside the team wasn’t the smartest plan. Most likely one of the team would call in a favor and they’d get a ride to the warehouse. Canyon? He intended to hoof it back there. Work off some of this steam through strenuous exercise.
Brakes squeaked and ground as the diesel truck chugged to a stop at the gate.
MPs hopped out, released the tailgate, then waved the team off. Once disembarked, the police trailed the team through the security checkpoint and stood there, watching.
“Start walking and don’t talk.” Max pointed west.
No one talked. Canyon sure wasn’t going to look at anyone. They probably hated him. He hated them for leaving Roark, for not fighting back when the spec-ops team drugged him.
Halos of light marked a gas station perched on a corner leading to the base.
“I’ll make a call.” Legend headed toward the dingy building straddling the far corner of the parking lot.
Canyon started walking. He’d find a way home. Find a way back to Roark. Even if it killed him.
“Metcalfe.” Max’s voice stabbed the night, stabbed Canyon’s tenuous control of his anger.
Keep walking. If he stopped, one of two things would happen: They’d talk him into listening and doing things their way. Or … there’d be a fight.
“Just leave him alone,” the Kid’s voice joined in.
“Back off, Kid,” Max growled.
“No, this is—”
“Back off. I mean it. You’re in hot water as it is.”
“Leave him alone,” Canyon said as he came around, staring at the man he now held responsible for this disaster.
“What?” Max said. “You ready to talk?”
Oh but no. He wouldn’t step into that trap. He shook his head, turned, and crossed the street. Rocks and dirt crunched beneath his boots.
“What?” Max called, all too close. “You going to abandon the team again?”
Canyon hesitated. Forced himself to keep walking. He’d had covert operatives try to beat the Tres Kruces information out of him. A little taunting from a guy like Max wouldn’t win.
“I saw you stewing on the plane. You’re blaming us for the mission failure, for not getting Roark back safely.”
Yeah, you got that right.
“But the blame rests on one man—you!”
Canyon rounded. Fury colored his vision red to find Max less than five feet behind. “What?!”
“If you hadn’t been doping and hadn’t gone off half-cocked—”
“Augh!” Canyon pounced. As he did, his brain registered the others sprinting across the road toward the ensuing fight. He dove into Max’s gut.
Oof.
Pinning the guy, Canyon threw a hard right into his face.
Hands hauled him off the team leader. Squirt and Cowboy held his arms tight. “Stand down, Midas.” Brows tight, lips flat, Cowboy stared between Max and Canyon.
Behind them, Legend jogged across the street.
Canyon wrestled free of the others, straightened his shirt with a shrug. “You don’t know the first thing about loyalty, Max.” He stretched his neck. “Tell me, what would you have done if we’d left Sydney on that island two years ago?”
The fury in Max’s expression waned.
“Yeah. Exactly.” Canyon pivoted and met a wall of bodies. “Abandon the team? Yeah, I’ll do that in a heartbeat if the men I trust can’t put their own butts on the line for a defenseless objective.”
He shoved between Squirt and Aladdin into the clearing. Then he paused and looked back. “Never thought the guy with the most guts on this team would be the Kid.” To Marshall he said, “Thanks, Kid. I’ll never forget it.”
Halfway across the open field, he heard: “You’re off the team!”
Hampton, Virginia 17 May
Max’s pulse hollowed out his hearing. Had Midas heard him? He stretched his jaw as he watched the most stoic member of the team disappear into the night.
“Hey.” Cowboy faced him, hand on Max’s shoulder. “Let’s … give him time.”
“Time to what? Come up with another harebrained idea and get us locked up again?”
“No, time to cool down.”
“I’ve never seen Midas like that, know what I’m saying?” Legend smoothed a hand over his bald head. “The guy is always on level ground. Even ticked off, he keeps his cool. That? That’s something I never thought I’d see.”
“So what? We overlook his negligence on the mission, his attempt to steal a chopper from the Air Force”—Max stuck a finger in the Kid’s face—“we’ll deal with that later”—then continued—“and act like it’s no big deal?”
“We’re all tired. A lot went wrong down there, starting with the mudslide,” Cowboy said. “Let’s get some rack time, then figure out where to go from here.”
Were they serious? It was like nobody cared that Midas had broken nearly every protocol and rule.
“What would you have done if we’d left Sydney?”
Midas hit a nerve. Max remembered all too well the fire roaring through his body at the thought of Sydney coming under attack by Muslim radicals, watching the fireball eating up trees and huts and knowing she was down there. When Cowboy and Legend had told him he couldn’t go after her, he’d wanted to kil
l them.
The outrage over Midas’s reaction and actions dumped. Was Danielle Roark that important to Midas? When did that happen? That’s it. That’s what he wasn’t telling them.
Headlights struck the team as a vehicle rounded a bend in the road.
Legend slapped Max’s shoulder. “There’s our ride.”
A white van pulled to the curb. A half hour later, the team strode into the Shack.
“I think we need to do something,” the Kid said. “She’s down there. With that piece of work Bruzon. Anyone with a brain knows that’s not good.”
Max snatched a towel from his locker. “Tell me, Kid, how do we get down there?”
“Lambert—”
“Missing.”
“Get a flight—”
“Flights take money and passports. Hamer had ours put on hold.”
The Kid shifted. Looked around at the others, who said nothing but bore the weight of the dire situation. “We can’t just do nothing—again.”
“I don’t plan to.”
Startled blue-gray eyes came to Max’s. The Kid wet his lips and checked the rest of the team again. “Then we’re going to do something?”
Secure Facility, Virginia 18 May
“Holy cow! Can you believe this?”
Fist against his lips, Major Matt Rubart paced outside the hospital room, his brain buzzed. When he’d gotten the anonymous tip about Corazine Mercado, he’d been pumped about finding more clues. Excited to add a new layer to this case that oozed conspiracy and thousand-watt trouble. What he hadn’t expected was the nuclear blast of information she provided. In the last two days, she’d filled gaps lurking within the case file with affectionate anecdotes and mirth over the antics of Bayani and Chesa.
“Foreign nationals … training …” He dragged a hand over his mouth. “It doesn’t make sense, Carrie. Why were Green Berets training Latino nationals in the Philippines? We have forces down there working with Filipino special forces, but not on our own like this, out in a village. It’s … it doesn’t make sense.”
Major Carrie Hartwicke met him with a rueful smile. “I’d say someone was passing notes—and I’m talking G-notes—under the congressional table.”
Matt frowned. “You realize what you’re saying.”
“Do you realize what I’m not saying?”
Eyeing her warily, Matt stowed the ideas tumbling through his head. If this was true, if the Special Forces unit stationed there had been ordered to train an enemy’s enemy … the ramifications blew his mind. But then again, it also explained so much. Like why someone wanted the whole Tres Kruces fiasco swept under the Capitol Hill carpet. No senator or congressman or woman would want something like that hanging over their heads at reelection time.
But the anticipation that nearly made him giddy was that this would also prove Canyon Metcalfe wasn’t guilty.
Which would score major points with Willow.
That is, if Matt could prove it. But the sweet woman had nearly died giving her story. And if it hadn’t been for their location—inside a hospital—she’d have died.
“What now? She’s on life support. The docs think she won’t regain consciousness.”
Matt rubbed his knuckles over his lips, staring at the dark gray flecks in the linoleum. “We have more than we did two weeks ago.”
“True, but we don’t have the proof to clear Metcalfe. And some of her story sounded elaborated.”
“It sounds legit.”
Major Hartwicke studied him. “Then you believe her?”
“She knows too much for it not to be true.”
“Half of what she said isn’t in the report.”
“Exactly. She filled in the holes we’ve been guessing at for the last forty months.”
“Yes, but thinking that and leaping off the bridge with her story is a huge risk.” She reached back and freed her hair from the bun. “Listen, Matt. If we go to the Brass with this story, first of all, the press is going to be all over it.”
“Nobody knows.”
“You can be really naive sometimes.” She glowered. “You and I both know they’ll be all over it.”
“Not naive. I just don’t see demons behind every wall.” He raked his hand through his hair and pushed to his feet. “How can you, in good conscience, not want to pursue this? An innocent man has been wrongly accused, convicted, and borne the punishment of a crime he didn’t commit.”
“We don’t know he’s innocent.”
Matt considered his friend and CID partner. She’d always been challenging, negotiating troubling thoughts and theories, and it’d worked well for them, but this time … something felt different. “Carrie, what’s with the misgivings? You’re the one who was all over this like white on rice. You said we should throw ourselves in the Atlantic if we didn’t try to get her back here.”
After a long sigh, she slumped into a chair. “I’ve been thinking about it—a lot. Whoever did this to Metcalfe, whoever buried the truth—they won’t want that coming out.”
His mood darkened. That was it? She was cowering? “So … what? We sit on it? Let Canyon bear the burden of everyone thinking he massacred an entire village?”
“Matt,” Carrie said with a hiss. “Nobody knows, remember? The Brass buried it. They made it go away. It made the papers once then died out. Besides, we aren’t even sure who this Bayani is yet—”
“Give me a break, Hartwicke! Bayani has to be Canyon.”
“I know. I just wanted to hear it from the old lady’s lips.”
Matt eased back. “Interesting that Canyon never reported marrying the chief’s daughter.”
“Well, it’s frowned upon but there aren’t any laws against it.”
Matt nodded.
“So … the little girl …”
Roughing a hand over his face, he groaned. “Mrs. Mercado never said which of her daughters gave birth to Tala. And even in her testimony, she said Chesa never conceived.”
He dropped his gaze, thinking of what Canyon had gone through. Remembering the man who’d stood before him nearly thirty months ago during his one-year review—haunted, ticked off, and adamantly silent. They’d really gotten to him. Spooked the Green Beret. “Pretty convenient, isn’t it?”
Carrie’s brown eyes rose to his. She cocked her head to the side. “I know that look.”
“Why would they bury it? Yeah, sure, it looks bad, but if what Corazine said is true, our men were training foreign nationals. What if that wasn’t on the up-and-up?”
She seemed startled and straightened. “Like?”
“Like, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
CHAPTER 26
Bruzon’s Estate, Venezuela
20 May
I am still surprised you came all the way down here, General Lambert.” Humberto rested an arm around the old man’s shoulder. “We are making good progress with the talks.”
“Progress?” Lambert’s bushy eyebrows arched. “General Bruzon, it’s chaos in those meetings. Every one of them wants their piece of the pie.”
Humberto guffawed. “Then they will be very disappointed when they learn we are serving cake. I will walk you out.” He removed his arm and let his gaze hit the man trailing him. The man who’d warned him about Lambert’s presence. The man who had returned from hunting for the incompetent team who’d returned Danielle to him.
Humberto smiled. Imbeciles. They thought they could protect her. Keep her safe—in his country! He’d shown them. Just as he would show this arrogant joint chief.
His fingers itched to curl around the wrinkled neck and squeeze the life right out of the general. Instead, the calm, confident expression of his right hand, Navas, kept him at peace. Humberto had played this game much longer than anyone else. And so close to victory this night, he could not afford to be impetuous.
No, he would not allow an imbecilic American to thwart his attention.
He clapped a hand over the man’s shoulder as he guided him to the main courtyard, where cars s
at idling. “You will return in the morning, General, for another day of talks, despite the boredom?”
Olin Lambert turned and nodded. “Of course, General Bruzon.” Blue eyes twinkled under the glare of the well-lit area. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
Humberto held up the 1965 bottle of wine he’d plucked from the cellar stores for the general, who’d manipulated the conversation earlier with the Madame Secretary so she would ask for a tour of his home. A simple but ineffective attempt on the part of the general to try to locate Danielle.
Did the man really think Humberto would keep her under the same roof? No wonder the Americans were losing the war.
“Thank you.” Lambert accepted the wine. “I look forward to sharing this with my wife.” He tucked himself into the car.
“Excellent. I hope she enjoys it.” Alone. Because the old man would be dead before he ever returned to American soil.
Humberto waited as the car slid through the gates. “He wasn’t on the original list?”
“I memorized every name,” Navas said from behind. “He shouldn’t have been here.”
“Indeed,” Humberto said, his eyes on the gate but his mind on the past. On a formidable foe who had been responsible for shutting down the secret training of Bruzon’s militia in the Philippines. He’d inflicted a blow to the man, but he’d recovered and sailed to the top of his career ladder. But … that wasn’t the same man, tormented with worry over a young woman. “He’s lost his touch. A shame.”
Humberto drew up his shoulders and let out a sigh as he turned to his man. “Know why I like you, Juan Navas? You aren’t afraid to dirty your hands.”
The man smirked. “A little soap and water …”
This time, the laugh was belly jouncing. “Lambert is resourceful. Perhaps too resourceful. He is a worthy adversary. He has the cojones to come out here and try to do things his way.”