But Petty Officer Bacon did not seem to agree, all but glowering as he stomped ahead.
“You okay with walking or should I get a Jeep?” he barked at Spencer. Damn. He’d thought Bacon was the open-minded one of the group, but he was sure as hell acting put out.
“Totally fine with walking. Listen, if you have a problem with me—”
“I don’t.” A muscle worked in his jaw.
“You don’t like me,” Spencer said bluntly. Speaking of getting things out in the open, they needed to address this now. If Bacon was to be his handler, it benefited them both to not have an actively hostile relationship.
“I’d like you a lot better on any team other than mine,” Bacon shot back as he sped up his walking pace. “And at the risk of inflating what has to be a Super Duty size ego, I’m a fan of your writing stuff. But you’re the last thing my team needs.”
“You’re a fan?” Spencer couldn’t help but smile.
“Knew that would be the part you focused on,” Bacon grumbled. “You’re not a bad writer, okay? But we don’t need a reporter—any reporter—potentially fucking up our mission. And if you tell the LT I said that—”
“I won’t,” Spencer promised before Bacon could finish his threat. “I get your reservations, I do. But just give me a chance, okay? I’m not out to make you or your buddies look bad.”
“Why do you want this assignment anyway?” Bacon demanded. They were passing nondescript buildings and carefully manicured grounds, but Bacon didn’t slow down and point out the sights to Spencer, instead marching on.
“My book about injured vets sold well. My publisher would like to see more like that from me, and this was an easy freelance pitch to my old paper for the feature piece, so there’s that.” Spencer tried for light, which only made Bacon glower more. He was going to just leave it at that, let Bacon frown himself into next week, but then some of the truth spilled out. “I saw a number of spec ops guys in my research at Walter Reed. It got me intrigued about how modern warfare operates out in the field. And then one of them died last year. Felt like maybe I owed it to him to pursue this story, jump through all the PR hoops to make it happen.”
“He died in the line of duty?” Bacon sounded marginally less combative.
“No. Suicide.” The word hurt, almost like it scraped his throat on the way out, and his voice was unnaturally rough. Bacon went pale and slowed his pace.
“Fucking sucks,” he said with far more feeling than Spencer would have expected.
“Yeah, it does,” Spencer agreed. It did fucking suck, no two ways about it. Even now, his back went slick with sweat, stomach full of guilt and dread, as he remembered that awful phone call from Harry’s wife. But nothing would be served by telling Bacon how Harry’s death had utterly gutted him, so he kept his voice even. “But he saw things that few people ever do. And those stories, they feel...significant.”
Bacon was silent a long time, plodding along, looking down at his feet.
“I get it,” he said at last. “But not gonna lie, wish they’d assigned you elsewhere. Rangers, maybe.” He gave a forced laugh, then straightened his posture to point at the giant obstacle course they were coming up to. “This is the grinder. It’s where the recruits spend significant time, but we train here too.”
“Awesome,” Spencer said as a long column of young men jogged up. He thought he spied a few females in there too, but it was hard to say with all of them in identical camo uniforms and short haircuts. They were all young, many looking not yet out of their teens. They were accompanied by a couple of older men, the instructors most likely, judging from how they barked orders at the assembled recruits.
“Bacon?” One of the instructors broke away from the group. “What are you doing here, man?”
“Hey, Wizard. This is reporter Spencer Bryant.” Bacon gestured at him. His tone was far warmer than Spencer had heard it so far, personable even. Maybe he wasn’t a perpetual bad-mood guy, after all. “He’s going to embed with our team. LT wants him to see BUD/S today, so we’re going to watch your guys do their thing, if that’s okay.”
“Fine. They’ll like the chance to show off.” Wizard, who was probably just shy of thirty, had a winning smile and the sort of good looks that could grace a recruitment poster. “We’re going to do a round with each team getting two-hundred-pound dummies through the course, then we’re going to assign a person on each team to play wounded and do it again.”
“Why make one play injured?” Spencer asked. “Don’t you want them to all get the workout?”
“It’s not about the workout,” Wizard answered. “Being carried is its own challenge. They have to know how to safely transport the wounded and infirm over difficult terrain, but they also need to be prepared to work short-handed and also to be the one out of commission.”
“Because it will happen,” Bacon added grimly. “And you need to pay close attention because if things go sideways when we’re out there, it’ll be your ass we’re hauling back. Can’t have you making it harder on the team.”
“Hey. I can help. I’m not necessarily going to be a liability,” Spencer protested.
“Help can get you—and everyone with you—dead, if you’re not careful.” Bacon shook his head.
“Actually...” Wizard’s eyes narrowed as he considered Spencer. “They had you sign waivers, right?”
“Dozens of them,” Spencer confirmed.
“How’d you feel about helping us out instead of just watching?”
“Bring it on.” Like with the run, Spencer was eager to prove himself.
“Okay, hang on.” Wizard jogged away.
“You’re not going to like this.” Bacon’s laugh was more genuine than it had been earlier. “Still time to say no.”
“Not a chance.” Spencer smiled at him, still trying to wear him down. “Nothing beats hands-on experience. I love being in the thick of things.”
“Don’t we all,” Bacon said, bitterness tingeing his words. And finally, Spencer got it. Bacon wasn’t a tour-guide sort of guy. Spencer was keeping him from his real work.
“Is that what’s up with you? You’re pissed that you have to hang with me instead of being in the action? Would it help if I say I’m sorry? I know this is a shit assignment.”
“It’s not that bad.” Bacon sighed but his animosity seemed to dial back a fair chunk.
“Mr. Bryant? Can you come here?” Wizard waved him over. Spencer hurried to where Wizard was facing the recruits. “Boat team three, front and center,” he ordered, and a group of eight recruits stepped forward. “This is Mr. Bryant. He’s a journalist. And today, he’s the hostage you just rescued. He’s got a hurt leg.”
“I don’t—” Spencer started to protest but Wizard was already slapping some sort of splint on his lower leg, over his pants.
“He can’t bend his leg,” Wizard continued. “And your mission is to get him through the first three obstacles in under five minutes without him putting weight on that leg. I will be watching you very closely. One hair out of place on his head at the end, and I’ll be cycling you. You’re going to show us how it’s done.” Wizard managed to be both strict and encouraging in his delivery.
“Yes, Chief,” the team yelled in unison.
“Mr. Bryant, your job is to listen to Seaman Briggs. He’s the leader of this team, and he’s going to get you through the obstacles safely. Right, Briggs?”
“Yes, Chief.” A tall, gangly kid stepped forward.
“Team. Your time starts now. Go.”
All but ignoring Spencer, Briggs conferred with his team about strategy. “We’ll need to carry him.”
“I can probably walk to the wall,” Spencer offered. He didn’t want to look totally incapable of holding his own. The first obstacle was a huge wall, probably nine feet tall, with ropes and handholds. Challenging, but until Wizard had splinted him, he could have handled it prett
y easily on his own.
“No, sir,” Briggs told him firmly. “We need to move. Tritt, Misk, Underhill. You’ve got Mr. Bryant to start. Watch the leg. Go. Go. Go.”
Then before Spencer really realized what was happening, three recruits picked him up like he was a ladder, and started running at a fast clip after Briggs and the rest of the group.
“That’s it,” Wizard called after them, apparently approving of Briggs’s plan.
Spencer quickly realized that struggle was only going to make things harder on all of them, and tried to relax as much as possible as they tossed him around. When they reached the wall, some recruits used the ropes and handholds on the wall while others positioned themselves on the ground and the top of the wall, and working as a team, they passed Spencer up the wall like he was a load of lumber. He had to admit, it was impressive how the team supported each other as well as him, making sure that no single recruit ever had his full weight, and that they all made it up and over.
It was more than a bit unnerving, and even though he had decades more experience keeping his cool than these kids, he had to force himself to not focus on how high up he was, how helpless, how dependent he was on these green recruits. And things only got harder when they reached a rope net. One wrong move and Spencer would plunge to the ground below, but all he could do was breathe and trust. Freaking out or arguing with Briggs was only going to prove to Bacon that he wasn’t cut out for this.
Why he cared so much about impressing Bacon, he didn’t really want to examine. And it wasn’t just him—he wanted to show all of them that he could meet the challenge at hand, even if that challenge was being human cargo.
“Ninety seconds,” Wizard called out. “Haul ass.”
“Hooyah!” Briggs yelled at his team. The next obstacle involved swinging tires, which the team maneuvered around by passing Spencer over the top of the tires, high above the ground. He’d never had a fear of heights before, and he wasn’t about to start now, but still... He had to admit he was a little rattled, and not just from all the jostling around.
“You’re doing great,” one of the smaller recruits told him as he passed Spencer over to the next in line.
I’m doing nothing, Spencer thought, but he supposed that was the point. He was helping by doing nothing, staying quiet and out of the way.
“Mr. Bryant delivered, Chief,” Briggs reported as they dropped back to the ground, coming in under the time allotted. His trio of handlers gently set him upright.
Wizard came over and inspected Spencer like he genuinely was looking for out-of-place dust, checking the splint before removing it, finally saying, “Good work.” After dismissing the recruits, he said to Spencer, “Not as easy as it seems, huh?”
“No,” Spencer admitted. “It’s hard to not want to get in there and help, but I do get the point, so thank you.”
“Anytime.” Wizard jogged back to the recruits, getting the teams set with large weighted dummies, leaving Spencer to walk back over to where Bacon was standing at the edge of the course, frown on his face.
“So how was it?” Bacon asked, looking over Spencer critically, like maybe he thought Spencer would be shaken up enough to want to call off this embedding business.
“Humbling. Sucked not doing any of the work. But I’m still up for this if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“You did good.” Bacon gave a sharp nod. “I gotta say, I thought you’d try to take over but you let him and his team do their jobs.”
Bacon’s attention shifted to the grinder, where the recruit teams were racing against each other. But Spencer’s attention stayed on Bacon. He was such a contradiction. Warm and joking with his friends, cold as ice with him, passionate about his job, yet guarded. Spencer was here to get the story he’d promised his editors, but he couldn’t help but wonder about the enigmatic Bacon, what his personal story was.
You’ve got a job to do, he reminded himself. He had no time for mental detours—his focus had to be on the assignment, not any personal curiosity about the cranky petty officer.
Chapter Three
“Remember. The call to go wheels up could come at any time,” Bacon reminded Bryant before watching him drive away in a nifty BMW.
Either writing paid far better than Bacon had thought or the guy came from money. Not that he needed to get curious about Bryant’s background or the ex-husband he’d mentioned or anything like that.
Bacon rolled his shoulders as he turned back from the gate. He’d seldom been happier to see the base gates close. Man, it had been a long day. And it wasn’t done yet. Friday night, with none of them sure if they’d ship out before next week, so of course everyone wanted to go get a beer.
And if Bryant thought he was getting invited out with the rest of the team... Well, that wasn’t happening. Hanging with him all day had been bad enough.
He’d warned Bryant not to get too comfortable back at his hotel room—the notice to deploy often came in the middle of the night, and the higher-ups were certainly acting like it would be soon, senior chief lecturing guys to not get wasted or make stupid decisions as they’d been dismissed.
As he walked from the gate to the barracks, he tried not think about how damn distracting Bryant was proving to be. It wasn’t just that he was hot as fuck—Bacon worked around hot people all the time. But he was nice. Like relentlessly charming, even when Bacon had been a dick to him most of the morning. He’d been a tremendously good sport about the training exercise, not at all what Bacon had expected. He’d figured Bryant would argue with the recruits, try to take charge, end up hurting himself or one of them in the process, but he’d shown remarkable restraint and trust, and Bacon had been impressed.
They’d watched the recruits do several passes through the grinder, and Bryant had asked smart, savvy questions. And therein was the problem—if Bacon wasn’t careful, he was actually going to enjoy this assignment, which was a risk. He couldn’t let his guard down around the reporter. There was too much he couldn’t share.
“Bacon! Ready to go?” Curly popped his head out of his room as Bacon passed by. “Come on, man. Get changed.”
“Give me five.” He was giving Curly a ride to the bar, then letting his fiancée bring him back later. He switched into jeans and a brown T-shirt advertising a campground he’d volunteered at, and grabbed his wallet and keys.
“Okay, okay, let’s go,” he hollered at Curly’s door. His friend hurried out in a cloud of cloying aftershave, practically racing Bacon to the truck.
“What a day, am I right?” Curly groaned as he hefted himself up into the cab of Bacon’s Silverado. “What the fuck is the LT thinking, giving you babysitting duty? Fuck that shit.”
“I know.” Bacon didn’t waste any time pulling out. “Last thing we need is a reporter.”
“Especially one who’s...” Curly made a vague gesture with his hand as Bacon slowed for the security checkpoint.
“Old?” Bacon suggested dryly. He knew exactly what Curly meant, but he wasn’t going to make it easy on him.
“Well, that too,” Curly allowed. “But I’m just saying it’s a damn good thing he’s not the type of anyone on the team. We don’t need another monkey wrench in the works.”
“Uh. Hello. Pan guy over here, remember?” Bacon swerved around a slow-moving truck. He had no patience for plodding drivers.
“You’re right.” Curly sighed as they pulled into the crowded parking lot of their favorite bar. “I’m sorry. I’m being a jerk. I’m just frustrated because I hate this situation—us with a damn investigator poking his nose into our business and you not out there next to me.”
“It’s okay. Let’s get our beers. It’s been a long week.” They made their way into the bar, which was packed. Rachel and her friends had nabbed several tables on the back wall. Rooster and Bullets were already there, beers in hand, flirting with the women.
Curly had a kiss for Rachel, then headed for the bar. “Your first drink is on me, okay?”
“Sure. Thanks.” Bacon could take the peace offering for what it was. “Corona with lime.”
“I got you.” Curly clapped him on the shoulder. After Curly returned, Bacon sipped his beer and watched the action swirl around him. Curly and Rachel were talking wedding preparations. Bacon felt weirdly restless, and not in the about-to-be-called-out way either. Something soft inside him ached, a seldom-used muscle that was starting to wither from lack of use. What are you? A fucking poet now? Ditch the crowd and go get laid. You’re getting cranky, he lectured himself. He probably wouldn’t have to work too terribly hard to get somewhere with one of Rachel’s friends, but he’d leave those pickings to the other guys on his team. Rachel was something of a meddling matchmaker. He needed to kick his black mood, not make a lifetime commitment.
In his pocket, his phone vibrated. Please don’t be base. Not ready to deploy. He needed that night to get his head on straight before shipping out. But no one else was scrambling for their phones, so his tension released as he glanced at the call screen. Lowe. His old teammate and a fabulous excuse to ditch the table.
“Gotta take this,” he yelled at Curly and headed to the parking lot where he could be heard.
“Bacon. You asshole,” Lowe said when he picked up, but he sounded more amused than put out.
“What’d I do?” He played dumb even though he had a pretty good idea.
“The director of the heart disease charity you ran the triathlon for just called my parents. Personally. Dude. That’s a ton of zeroes on that check in my sister’s name.” Lowe’s sister had received a heart transplant last year.
“I know a lot of people. You know how it goes. Five dollars here, twenty there. It all adds up. And it was an awesome race. Just missed medaling. Missed your slow ass yelling at me, though.”
“I know.” Lowe’s tone sobered. “I miss you guys too.”
“How’s civilian life treating you?” Bacon leaned against the building.
Tight Quarters Page 3