by Billi Jean
If he was turning that toward a woman, well, Will considered the implications and hid a grin. Paris better be ready for what she got because Jansen when he did go in, he went all-in and he didn’t believe in candy coating a damn thing.
Will glanced at the tight grip Jansen had on the wheel and wondered how that approach was working with the lovely Paris. She wasn’t either of their typical women—she was sweet, and her shyness wasn’t faked—if he had to guess what motivated her to let them share her, it’d been too much alcohol, their personalities and maybe a sadness he’d seen in her eyes. A break-up maybe, but that wasn’t all, maybe it was David. She’d been drawn to him in an obvious way, maybe even too obvious for David to see.
“So she’s not upset with you having to drop things to come back here?” he asked.
“Naw, she didn’t appreciate the guys on the snowmobiles, though.”
Will guessed that was an understatement.
Paris was a pretty, a gorgeous woman really, with a sweetness about her that made him more than a little jealous of Jansen. He was also man enough to appreciate that he got to have a small slice of the whole.
“I’m glad for you, man. Don’t blow it,” he cautioned.
“What makes you think I will?” Jansen growled.
“Well, you’re you.” Will laughed then felt sorry for the poor bastard. “If you’ve not scared her off by now, I’m guessing she’s into you. Even your damn habit of asking whatever the fuck pops into your brain, so don’t stress out so much. Relax. It’s not many guys that get what you’ve been given—a chance with a real keeper.”
Jansen glanced over as if checking out if he was pulling his leg. He seemed to soak that in, even loosening up enough to relax on the steering wheel.
After a minute or so he sighed. “Yeah, she’s kinda all of it, isn’t she? I mean, hell, I held her last night, just kinda watched her sleep.” He shrugged and smirked. “It was damn nice. I mean, no wonder all those suckers called home every chance they got back in the SEALs. Those guys were nuts though,” he added.
“Why?”
“Well, first, why the fuck would you go out there and get your ass shot off if you might not be able to come home to that? I mean, what were they thinking?”
“So you’ll just call it quits? End your service because you met the one?” Will asked, stunned.
Jansen grimaced. “She’s worth getting a day job for, hell anything so it’s not six months, sometimes a year before I see her again. That shit is a recipe for insanity. Already I can’t think straight,” he added in a mutter.
Will shook his head. “Man, you just don’t know what it’s like, that’s all. You’re never into a woman, ever. Now it’s broadsided you. Like basic training all over again, Jan.”
“Fuck you, Will. You’re just sore she liked me more.” Jansen laughed.
“Maybe, maybe,” Will admitted but an image of Sara, ducking her head so her hair hid her face when she’d sat in his truck floated through his brain. She might have signed on for a wild weekend with her boyfriend, but she hadn’t been prepared for how wild. She’d been frightened, and not too happy with the sex drug, he could tell. What would she think of a man who not only had been on a similar drug, but still fought the effects she’d only sampled in a limited dose? The thought burned his gut, so he switched that line of thinking off. Sara wasn’t the woman for him, not now, not ever. Neither was Paris. “How much farther? I’m not thinking a night hike isn’t your plan for the evening, is it?”
“She’s getting a picnic ready for us, in case the storm snows us in.”
“We are never snowed in. What are you talking about?” Will asked, watching Jansen pull over and grin at him.
“She doesn’t know that.” He sounded happy. “And you can carry my weight for a few days,” he tossed in, grabbing his gear from the back. “It’s not like you really have to train those men. It’s just for show. Besides, I had your back enough when Chung’s had you upside down and sideways.”
“Thanks for the reminder, buddy,” Will muttered, not liking the reference or the reminder that he still couldn’t beat the Sentinel Drug.
“No problem, I’ve got your six,” Jansen called. “Here’s where I’m guessing the men were headed. We follow the tracks”—he pointed to the left, where Will could see the break in the forest and the snowmobile marks in the snow—“I think we’ll find more than we bargained for. I hope Petrok’s on your speed dial.”
“Is your new girlfriend?”
Jansen grinned. “She doesn’t own a cell phone.”
Stunned, Will stood there staring at his buddy. Jansen winked a lazy blue eye and twisted his toothpick to the side of his mouth, nodding, pleased as hell. “She likes McDonald’s too.”
“You’re shitting me.” Dream come true. A woman without a phone, always texting, checking it and demanding constant contact was a rare, if not extinct, species. The McDonald’s thing he didn’t get, but no phone? Hell, was that even possible? “How the….I mean, fuck, why not? Did you give her one?”
“I gotta get to that, but nope, she said she hates that people are so into technology they can’t seem to think of a thing to say to each other face to face.”
Holy hell. “You’re one lucky man, Jan. If you screw up, I’m going for it.”
“Believe me.” Jansen gave him a hard stare. “I’m not screwing up.”
“Right, well, let’s get this over with so you can prove it.”
Jansen snorted, but Will shook his head again, following him. The man just might get it right. If she spent the day with him and she still hung around…
“Two hours, then we have to head back,” he called, gaging the time on his watch.
“Yep, that was my guess. Do you think she’s tired? I mean, we got up early, then skated, then hiked. She might be tired.”
Skated? “Jansen, just move your brain back to the mission for two hours,” Will growled. If this was Jansen in love, he’d hate to see him if she returned the feelings.
Or if she didn’t.
The thought made him frown. Jansen didn’t give up once he took something on, but he didn’t take something on unless he knew he could handle it. What did that mean with love? Love was a tangled mess of emotional ups and downs with no road map. Was Jansen prepared to navigate his way through that?
Will assessed his buddy and guessed he was.
* * * *
David shifted his pack and tightened a strap, but didn’t take his eyes off the camp below them.
“There’s twelve men,” he murmured in his com. Will was on the opposite rise, having circled around the makeshift camp. Whoever the men were, they’d come prepared to stay a while.
“Got it. There are two more to the left of you, ten o’clock.”
Scanning the ridge below him, he located the two. “That makes fourteen. Spot any insignia?”
“Not yet. I’m scanning the men and sending to base.”
This could mean more people knew what Duke was up to than they’d thought. More people with the money to take what they wanted, rather than wait for Duke to sell it. That meant money, power and enough connections to get this kind of force in here under the radar. Duke had been given the green light because there were bigger fish to fry. Whoever this was, hadn’t hit their radar.
Until now.
He settled more firmly on his stomach and pulled his rifle out, piecing it together silently. He unfolded the tripod and adjusted his scope. Through the lens he could make out the faces of individuals, but none were familiar to him. He’d seen sheet after sheet of criminals in the underground human trafficking ring, more in the arms dealers dung heap and file upon file of threats to the US. None of the men below him set off a warning signal. They dressed like local cult members or some such.
“Anything?” he asked.
“Not yet. Carson is running them.”
That could mean many things. The snow had started to turn thicker, a much damper fall too, so it might drop a few feet—as pr
edicted. The soldiers below them weren’t leaving. There were six tents, one in the center. Some of them were hanging lanterns, and one guy was making a meal. It even smelled good. His stomach growled, reminding him of Paris. What didn’t remind him of Paris? Even the snow gradually covering him reminded him she was probably pleased it was snowing—so she could have a day inside with him.
“The white-haired man, your center, standing with two in green and brown, he’s wanted for arms dealing in the Congo. He has a warrant out, along with the two he’s talking to. The one coming up to them is Jason Sanders, head of the EBC, Early Believers of Christ, a cult out of Jasper.”
“Well, isn’t this fun? What does Carson say they want?”
“He’s checking. We’re to mark their location, get pics and stand down.”
“Right.” So mark their company and send in sat locations. That meant another hour laying low. Two tops.
“Move your ground two hundred yards to your right and cover that area facing you and I’ll do the same. Two hours, we should be good to go.”
“Three, then.”
“Good catch, Jansen,” Carson buzzed in. “Keep your heads up. I’m sending this to Petrok. She’s touched base with the sellers in DC. She’ll be back by tomorrow. This could be wrapping up real fast. No way can we let these boys near Duke. Be ready to take them down when shit flies south at Duke’s.”
“A two-prong approach?” David asked, still scoping the group below him.
“Yes. You’re in town, move it to Duke’s. I want you both within inches of each other and ready to hit these men.”
A man walked out of the central tent, lifted his head, and David nearly squeezed the trigger on his sniper rifle. “Twelve o’clock. Rick Martinez.” Second to Savage on their list of men to kill on sight.
“Hold your ground, Jansen.” Carson’s order was sharp and clear, but through the com, David could also hear Will swearing.
“Orders, sir?” he asked, after a minute of watching the scumbag.
Shit. Fuck. Son of a bitch.
“We stick to the plan. I’ll send in a team. You will hit these men when we hit Duke. I’ll station men nearby in case they move. You be ready for my call. I want you on lead.”
“Will do, sir,” Will called in.
“Ditto, sir.” David gathered his gear, marshalling his reasons for dragging Paris to Duke’s. Now more than ever he wanted her as close to him as possible. Martinez was scum, and if he was camping out, it was at Savage’s orders. If Savage was involved… David wanted Paris safe. She’d come, if he pushed hard enough. But would she be safe? Already someone could have blown their cover. If someone had spotted him, with her, she could be in danger even now.
He forced himself to stop that line of thought. She was safe, and she’d be safer with him.
“Ten minutes, Jansen.”
“Check, ten.”
The snow made it easy to move unseen. No one searched up high on a perimeter when it snowed. Still, he had to work hard to keep his mind on the mission. In the stillness of the early winter evening he could even make out the men talking in the distance. Someone put on music and a few were breaking open beers. So the cult drank and listened to music. He’d never heard of the group, but then, he’d never focused on domestic terrorists.
Will checked in twice, changing their location but after an hour they were done taking photos and sending them in. The men below them hadn’t set exterior scouts, secure in their location and, he guessed, were betting on the heavy snowfall keeping everyone away.
“Finished.”
“Done, meet at the northern point,” David muttered. He’d stowed his rifle and gear. The sun was down now and the day was catching up to him. Not that he’d be too tired to convince Paris to come with him to Duke’s. But should he?
Just thinking of her, he had to pause and shake his head. Now was not the time. Even if every other second his mind thought it was. That’s how you get your ass shot off. His focus back on the silent woods, he waited until he was certain there was no sound before he began quietly making his way to the meet-up location. Half an hour later, he found their small cut in a pine tree and waited ten feet from it, under the cover of another fallen pine still heavy with greenery.
Will was five minutes late, coming in silently enough that David had to strain to hear him even when he saw him. Snow did that. It also worked for the other guys. They nodded and took off again, still moving silently as they put distance between themselves and the campers. This far out, they would claim they were lost hunters. Both had the fake licenses and maps to prove it, but their rifles were a bit sketchy since neither had a hunting rifle on them. The plan was to say they were scouting, which was valid, but if the guys were worth any amount of money, they’d not buy that line.
“Savage has to be in on this,” Will growled for greeting.
“I agree. I was also thinking an insider at Duke’s might be dishing intel, giving them details. But they could wait at a hotel. Why camp out here?”
“They like it?” Will laughed then shook his head. “I shit you not, some of those cult guys are nuts. Nothing they do would surprise me.”
“Yeah, but they also like comfort, and as nice as those tents are… I’m not buying it. Something else is up.”
“Probably, but we’re on it now, so it won’t matter, right? Carson thinks it’s all tied to the drug. The sex drug. It could be used for human trafficking. Think, man, if they had that, it’s like Cat, the date-rape drug, right, but the woman is willing, more than willing.”
“Sick shit, man, sick shit,” David muttered. “And you wonder if I would drop all this for the right girl.”
“You never seemed interested in the right girl before,” Will said.
“I guess because I hadn’t met her.” Jansen shrugged when he said it because it was more truthful than he really felt comfortable being.
“Yeah,” Will said, sounding tired.
Their truck loomed out of the thick snowfall. “Here we are. You tired? Want to stop by, say hi to Paris?”
“What, me? No way man, that’s all you. Just drop me off, I’m dead on my feet,” Will said. “This cold gets to me. Give me the desert any time.”
Jansen grunted. “I like it,” he muttered but he doubted Will heard him. Maybe he liked it because Paris liked it. “Do you ever play hockey anymore?”
“Hockey? Nah, not for years, you?”
“Nah. It’s a good game, though.”
“Yeah, it’s a great game.” Will gave him an odd frown.
Paris liked skating—he could get back into hockey.
“You gonna start the truck, Jan?” Will grumbled.
“Yeah, sorry man, just thinking about—”
“Paris. Yeah, got that. Man are you in. I kinda feel sorry for the poor girl,” Will muttered. “She has no idea what you’re like.”
David started the truck and let it warm up. “What I’m like?”
“You’re like a dog with a bone. I hope she likes that about you, because you do not give up what you got. I bet you have things from when you were a kid still.”
“Sure, everyone does.”
“Not everyone. You still have that shark tooth you broke off the tiger shark in Vietnam?”
“Of course, that was amazing. Who wouldn’t keep it?”
“And the card from Sergeant Brown’s wife? When you got him out of the jail down in Bisbee?”
“What’s your point? I keep stuff.”
“Paris isn’t stuff, man, she isn’t stuff.”
No, she wasn’t, she was… Much more than stuff. Maybe even worth more than all he’d saved up. “Yeah, I’m aware. For one, she won’t fit in my back pocket like that note from Brown’s lady, or on my neck like that tooth.”
Will laughed and rubbed his hair. “Right, right, well, good to know, you got it all figured out then—good.”
Like hell he wanted to say, but he pulled out and did a U-turn to head back down to the compound. Like hell, because even
thinking of juggling this mission and time with Paris, and not freaking her out by demanding too much from her had him sweating. He needed to shower before he went near her, too. Maybe shower in the room, then coax her in with him…
“Just remember, we’re not out of this yet. Mind on the mission. You heard Carson, you’re to come in.”
“I heard him. I’ll think on whether to bring her or not.”
Will grunted. “I’d keep her out of this. Two days, tops, we’re done. Jansen,” he added, “if she can’t wait that long, then there’s your sign she’s not for you, man.”
“She’d wait, but I’m not sure I want to. I’d be more settled with her close, where I know she’s safe. If Martinez is here, Savage sent him, or he’s also close by. I want her near so I can protect her.”
After a minute or two of driving, Will nodded. “Yeah, that might be true. Those men have to come into town to get supplies. Women disappear all the time. Maybe closer is better, but if she’s there for you, she’s there for you, man. You got to get your head on straight, otherwise you’re of no use to us. Half in is half a foot in the grave.”
David exhaled, knowing what Will said was true, except Paris would wait for him, she’d be unhappy, he thought, but she’d do it. Why make her unhappy? Worse, why endanger her by not being near her to keep her safe?
“Yeah, I got your six, no worries,” he said automatically.
Only he did have worries. What if this all went to shit and he couldn’t reach Paris?
No cell phone. As thrilling as that was, he needed to set her up with something in case things did go south. First, he needed to bring her in. And that, he sensed, might be harder than getting in her bed to start with.
Chapter Eight
Paris took one look at David and giggled. Then covered her mouth. He had snow on his shoulders and head, more on his arms, and probably some on his back. He took a step toward her, and she jumped off the bed to the other side so it was between them.