Of course, making it down to the valley was going to be the tricky part and, yeah, he couldn’t deny the fact that it would’ve been a whole helluva lot easier for them if they’d still had al-Masri to use as a shield and bargaining chip.
What the hell have I done? Again, the question blasted into his head, and waves of guilt and recrimination washed through him, compounded by the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
“Fall back!” Boss shouted and, once again, fall was exactly what they did.
The mountainside below the outcropping of trees was even steeper—if that was possible—and controlling their descent proved hopeless. Soon, all four of them were rolling and tumbling like clothes in a dryer. Sharp rocks and debris grabbed onto straps and gear, snatching it away, and all the time bullets rained down from above.
They landed in a giant heap of screaming muscles and tangled limbs at the foot of the mountain beside the tiny village houses. Boss and Rock both made for one helluva hard landing spot, but Jake figured Preacher, who’d ended up on top of the pile, would say something similar about him.
The four of them managed to untangle themselves only to fire and retreat, fire and retreat, leapfrogging each other as they raced toward the village.
Thankfully, they weren’t met with any resistance from the village’s inhabitants. It seemed all the guys with guns were on the side of the mountain.
Well, mahalo to the Big Kahuna in the sky for small miracles.
As Jake, Preacher, and Rock laid down covering fire, Boss planted one of his big boots against the door of a little mud-brick house and, two seconds later, they all stumbled inside.
It was blessedly empty.
Again, Jake took the right, Preacher the left, and Boss held steady smack dab in the middle while Rock covered their six. They kept plugging away at the approaching army, acquiring targets and squeezing their triggers. During a small lull in the action, Jake felt for his cell phone and came up empty-handed. Damn! He must’ve lost it somewhere on the long tumble down the mountain along with two extra clips, his M203 grenade launcher, and his pack.
“I lost my phone!” he yelled, and watched from the corner of his eye as Boss, Rock, and Preacher started patting pockets, searching for their phones, their one and only chance of making it out of this god-awful situation alive.
Both Boss and Rock came up with a big handful of nada. Thankfully, Preacher hit the jackpot.
He held up the device triumphantly, but Jake could tell by the look on his face, they were too close to the side of the mountain to get reception.
“Cover me!” Preacher yelled.
Before any of them could stop him, Preacher raced through the front door and down the packed dirt street. Bullets slammed into the road all around him, kicking up great puffs of dirt as he serpentined his way toward the open poppy field at the south end of the village where his chances of acquiring a cell signal would be the best.
It was the bravest thing Jake had ever seen, but he didn’t have time to watch the heart-wrenching spectacle because he had to keep shooting, keep disposing of as many of the men operating those AKs as he could so Preacher could make the Hail Mary call back to base.
He didn’t know how much time passed. It seemed like days but was, in reality, probably only about fifteen minutes.
Then, the most delightfully welcome sound he’d ever heard came thundering down the valley. A couple of U.S. Air Force boys in stealth fighters began dropping twelve-hundred-pound bombs on the side of the mountain beyond the village in a beautiful, tightly packed barrage of fire and death.
The blasts were beyond belief, the concussive effects loud enough to render everyone deaf for long moments afterward.
In their little house, the three SEALs warily eyed the roof as one entire mud wall cracked and splintered like shatterproof glass. The ground beneath them heaved in a series of rolling waves but, thankfully, the roof held. And when the bombardment finally ceased, they peeked from the door and windows.
The main body of al-Masri’s men was obliterated. Nothing left but gaping, charred holes where previously whole groups of men had been firing. Only a few Taliban fighters, dazed and wounded, stumbled upright to try and continue the battle.
Jake took aim and started picking off the survivors. They needed to finish this and find Preacher.
The guy had been gone too long. Outside. Exposed.
When no more fighters popped up to aim rusted-out AK-47s in their direction, they abandoned their cover and hoofed it down the dusty road toward the poppy field. They pushed into the middle of the field just in time to see one of al-Masri’s men jump up and take aim at Preacher’s unprotected back.
“Preacher!” Boss and Rock yelled at the same time Jake shouted, “Steven!” They raised their M4s, but not before the gunman squeezed off two rounds.
Preacher spun as the scorching lead slammed into his body, and Jake freight-trained it toward the Taliban fighter, screaming like a berserker as he plied his trigger again and again.
The man jerked as round after round tore through his flesh, but even after he’d fallen to the ground, Jake didn’t let up. He continued to riddle the body with bullets.
His monster was free for the second time today…
When he got close enough to see the man’s face, he squeezed the trigger one more time, putting a round right between those evil, sightless eyes as he spit on the corpse and cursed the bastard to hell.
Of course, the person he should be cursing was himself.
If only he hadn’t been such a chicken shit, so scared of the thing he was becoming that he couldn’t make the tactically sound decision—which would’ve been to kill al-Masri on the side of that mountain—they could’ve made it to the plateau before al-Masri’s army, and from their superior position, they might’ve held off the fighters until an extract team arrived.
And, as if of that wasn’t bad enough, then when they’d actually needed al-Masri, he’d gone and lost control and killed the guy. Now, because Jake had screwed up on every level possible today, Preacher was lying in an expanding pool of dark blood.
He ran to where Boss and Rock knelt beside Preacher and choked when he saw the gaping hole through Preacher’s chest and its twin through his lower abdomen. Amazingly, Preacher was still conscious, still clutching his M4 in one hand and his open cell phone in the other—the same phone that’d called in the airstrike that had saved their lives.
Jake fell to his knees, helping Boss and Rock apply pressure to those gruesome wounds as blood pumped hot and heavy between his shaking fingers.
“Hang on, man,” he whispered, glancing up as Boss stood and whipped off his shirt. They’d lost their field medical gear in the headlong plummet down the mountainside and had no bandages or QuikClot. Their clothes were the only things they had to try and staunch the life-taking river of fluid pouring from Preacher’s body.
“Helo on…the…” Preacher choked and coughed, foaming blood oozing from both corners of his mouth, “…way,” he finally finished.
“Yeah man, yeah,” Jake murmured, not trying to fight the tears streaming down his cheeks as he ripped the shirt Boss handed him in two, pressing each half into Preacher’s wet, ragged wounds. “You did one helluva job,” he said around a heart that was sitting and throbbing in the back of his parched throat. “Gave those Air Force boys perfect coordinates. They obliterated al-Masri’s guys.”
“Good,” Preacher choked, and Jake had to resist the urge to throw his head back and shriek his grief into the hot Afghan air.
No way was help arriving in enough time to save Preacher’s life.
“I’m going to go look for our medical gear,” Boss said.
“I’ll go with ya,” Rock murmured, blood oozing from the deep gash in his shoulder to slide down his arm and drip from his fingers into the dark soil of the open poppy field. “Fours eyes are better than two.”
Jake nodded and numbly watched his teammates race back toward the side of the mountain.
“S-Snake?” Preacher coughed wetly, and Jake knew that sound. Most folks referred to it as the death rattle.
“Yeah, bro?”
“Sh-Shell,” more coughing, more awful rattling. “She’s…” Preacher’s eyes flew open, and the coughing turned to choking.
Jake could do nothing. Nothing to help his teammate, his fellow soldier, his friend as the Grim Reaper hovered overhead. He felt that bastard’s presence like a cold, wet blanket, and knew if the sonofabitch were corporeal, he’d blast him full of holes before sending him back to the stinking black abyss from which he’d sprung.
“She’s…” from somewhere Preacher found the strength to finish, “pregnant.”
Pregnant? Dear God…
“C-congratulations, bro.” He choked on his tears, hoping Preacher didn’t know the extent of his feelings for Michelle, or about that night in the bathroom of the Clover Bar and Grill when he’d almost let things get out of hand with her. The same night he’d shoved her into Preacher’s arms.
Of course, at the time, he’d never dreamed she’d go and do the smart thing and actually fall for the guy…
With one last mighty heave, Preacher tried his best to fight Death.
But in the end, Death was too strong.
And Jake could do nothing but sit, crying and cradling the lifeless body of one of the finest men he’d ever known.
He refused to let go of Preacher even after Boss and Rock returned, empty-handed, from the mountain and sank down beside him, tears streaking their faces. He refused to let go when the Night Stalkers arrived and loaded them all into their Chinook. He refused to let go until it was time to clean and prepare Preacher’s body for transport back to the states.
And all the while he was thinking, This is my fault. This is all my fault…
Chapter One
Chicago, four years later…
“Just leave them on the porch,” Michelle instructed, peeking through the peephole at the flower delivery man as she wiped her flour-covered hands on her apron.
Something wasn’t right.
For one thing, the delivery man held up the blue roses so she couldn’t see his face. For another, she wasn’t expecting any roses.
Of course, maybe she was just being paranoid, but that’s what she got for being the kid sister of a covert government defense contractor. She had the tendency to see villains lurking around every corner.
“But I’m s’posed to get a signature, ma’am,” the guy said, his deep voice muffled by the flowers.
Nope. Her brother had told her on numerous occasions—drilled it into her head was more like it—to follow her instincts. Always.
“Sorry,” she called. “I’m not expecting any flowers. You’ll just have to take them back.”
The guy seemed to hesitate. Then he shrugged his shoulders behind the giant bouquet before turning and dropping the roses on the top step. He quickly crossed the street and, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets, strolled down the block and around the corner where he’d no doubt parked his delivery van. She still didn’t get a good look at his face, but stitched across the back of his baseball cap in white lettering was the logo for Silly Lilly Flower Shop.
Crap. She was obviously jumping at shadows.
Opening the door, she retrieved the bouquet and fished through them for a card.
Nothing.
Huh…
Shaking her head in confusion, she walked into the kitchen and took down a vase from above the refrigerator. She filled it with water, then arranged the brilliant blue roses and placed them in the middle of her kitchen table before skirting around the counter to resume her task of rolling out dough for homemade pasta.
She was still frowning at the flowers when her brother slammed in through the back door, wincing when his cast accidently banged against the jamb.
“Something wrong with the front door?” she asked as he ambled toward the refrigerator.
“Thought I’d try something new,” he replied as he took out a gallon of milk and twisted off the cap, tilting his head back to drink straight from the carton.
“Lovely,” she muttered, shaking her head as she threaded a piece of dough into her pasta machine.
There was no use scolding him. She’d tried that, and it’d never made any difference except to exacerbate her own frustration.
“Snake’s back,” Frank blurted, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth before replacing the milk and strolling over to lean a hip against the counter.
Great big, fat, cricket-chirping, tumble-weed blowing silence.
That’s what followed his announcement for all of about thirty seconds, until she could swallow down her stupid heart. She’d been dreading the day she’d hear those words, though a part of her always knew it would eventually come.
“Oh, yeah?” she finally managed to ask, glad to discover her voice wasn’t shaking like her knees. “What does he want?”
“He says he’d like to see you,” Frank admitted nonchalantly, popping a ball of dough into his mouth before she could swat his hand away.
Her belly did a good impression of an Olympic gymnast at this second declaration, but she chose to ignore the sensation.
“You shouldn’t eat that!” she admonished, evading his last statement because, truthfully? She couldn’t go there. Not yet. “Okay, fine. Go ahead and eat it, you big dummy. But if you get salmonella, don’t come crying to me.”
“I won’t,” he assured her with a wink. “I’ll go crying to Becky. She makes one helluva nurse.” He patted the blue spica cast that held his newly reconstructed shoulder immobile, grinning like a loon. She knew that particular head-in-the-clouds smile was because Becky Reichert, the hotshot motorcycle designer who provided the cover for Frank and all the guys over at Black Knights Inc., had agreed to become his wife.
It’d be a marriage made in motorcycle designer/secret-agent heaven, no doubt.
Here comes the bride. All dressed in…studded black leather?
Shaking her head, she tried to envision that particular wedding ceremony and failed miserably.
“Uncle Frank! Uncle Frank!” Franklin raced into the kitchen from the living room, clutching the blue construction paper upon which he’d glued colorful, crazily shaped tissue-paper fish. Her heart warmed at the sight of her rough-and-tumble son with his mop of unruly, sable-colored hair and his stormy gray eyes. “Look what I made with Miss Lisa today!”
Frank scooped the boy up in his good arm, regarding the sticky, slightly limp piece of art like it was the Mona Lisa.
“Well, would you look at that,” he mused, his deep voice infused with the appropriate amount of awe to bolster a three-year-old’s ego. “Looks like you’ve got a burgeoning artist on your hands here, Shell.”
Franklin pressed a tissue-paper fish more firmly onto the construction paper with one stubby finger. The tangy aroma of Elmer’s glue wafted from the soggy work of art.
“In fact,” her brother continued, “this little man might just be the next Picasso.”
Franklin’s lips puckered. “No way! I’m not gonna be no pistachio! I’m gonna build motorcycles with you, Uncle Frank,” he declared hotly before squirming to be let down.
Her brother deposited him on the floor, and Franklin trotted toward the living room, the conversation apparently having reached its conclusion in his brain until her brother said, “Well, you can do anything you want to do, kiddo. The sky’s the limit.”
Franklin turned back, blinking twice as if truly grasping the magnitude of this last statement. Then he swung around and raced away, singing “On Top of Spaghetti” at the top of his lungs as the lights in his sneakers blinked happily.
“You and Franklin should come back with me tonight,” Frank declared.
Her stomach did another quick flip at the thought of actually coming face-to-face with Jake Sommers.
She should’ve been ready to see him again. She should have been.
She wasn’t…
“We’re trying to take Beck
y’s mind off what happened yesterday evening. She’s still a little shaky,” he continued, and Michelle pushed aside her aversion to the thought of seeing Jake just enough to think a little shaky? Becky Reichert had shot and killed a villainous, bloodthirsty man not more than twenty-four hours ago, and she was only a little shaky? “Rock says he’s gonna grill up some steaks and brats. And it’s such a beautiful evening for a barbeque.”
There he went again with that loony grin. It was almost eerie. Like attack of the pod-people eerie.
Come on,” he cajoled when her face filled with mutiny. “With Snake back and Rock finally home, it’ll be like old times.”
“You mean the kind of old times that made you hide me away from your coworkers at Black Knights Inc. for the past three and a half years?”
After everything that’d happened in Coronado, after the horror of it, her brother had thought it better to keep her separate from that part of his life, the government operator part of it. He’d thought he was protecting her by keeping her a secret from his employees at Black Knights Inc., protecting her from more fear and heartbreak. And maybe he was right. But she’d become sick and tired of being a peripheral figure in his world. So she’d shown up at the hospital after his shoulder surgery and introduced herself to all the Knights who’d been waiting for him to come out of recovery.
Oopsie. My cover’s blown!
Aw, shucks…
“Well, the jig is up anyway, thanks to you,” he scowled and feigned punching her in the shoulder. “So you might as well come out to the shop and see what I’ve been up to.”
“I’ve got to finish rolling out this dough,” she hedged, getting desperate. When Frank got that particular look in his eye—yep, there it was—there was no nay-saying him. Of course, that wasn’t going to stop her from giving it her best effort. “Plus, I’ve got an early appointment in the morning.”
“Well that’s perfect. You two can pack some bags and spend the night.”
“A-are you insane?” she sputtered. It just gets worse and worse. “First of all, you know I don’t like to mess with Franklin’s schedule. And secondly, do you really want a three-year-old running around your—” she peered into the living room to make sure her little pitcher wasn’t listening in with his big ears, “—super-secret spy shop?”
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