“Sorry to call you so late, Connie. I’m on my way back to San Diego. Thought maybe we—”
“Well, holy shit, Marcy. How good of you to wake the baby up.”
“Sorry. I can call in the morning—”
“No. You don’t get off that easy.”
“Pardon?”
“I’ve got a screaming baby, but I got a boob that will do just fine.”
“Okay.” Marcy tried a nervous laugh on for size. Connie was more than prickly.
“All good now. Little shit won’t sleep the night, but then that’s nothing new.” Connie took a deep breath and let it out before she continued. “So, I’ve been doing a little research. Very interesting what you can find out if you ask the right questions.”
“Not sure what you mean, Connie. What questions?”
“When were you going to tell me you were fucking my husband?”
Chapter 19
‡
PT STARTED AT o-six-hundred with a timed five-mile run around the track. The girls joined them. On the other side of the cafeteria was a small gym with rusty equipment Lucas could smell just as soon as he walked through the old double doors. One window had been duct taped down the middle, cheaply repairing a crack that threatened to destroy the whole frame. Fredo was making a list of things to get at Costco. He’d put down a water dispenser, some white towels to wipe the equipment down with, cleaning supplies and some free weights.
The smell of fresh coffee reminded Lucas of home, causing a twinge of homesickness. He missed her.
The training went by fast as they focused on pull-ups and sit-ups before they began doing stretching exercises. Several of the team guys remarked they missed the ocean. Coop and Fredo had created a ritual of diving in after an especially long and arduous workout.
Kyle asked T.J., Armando, Lucas, and Jake to join him for a hike up toward the ridge overlooking the camp’s compound. It was classified a training exercise.
The five of them made less noise than one of the local deer as they jogged through sparse woods and a meadow with a small stream coursing through the middle. Close to the compound, the terrain was dotted with large granite boulders and became steep. Midway up the bluff, Kyle motioned with hand signals pointing to a sentry. The team fanned out around the back side of the outcropping so his line of sight would miss them. The thin, dark-skinned man was wearing shabby ill-fitting clothes and shoes that laced up, but appeared several sizes too large for him.
T.J. nearly ran into another sentry sitting on a large boulder, an AK-47 resting across his thighs. T.J. signaled and everyone froze in place.
The team waited nearly an hour, settling against rocky crags and high meadow brush, easily camouflaged, to make sure no one else appeared in the area. Since these men were not breaking the law, the SEALs were only tasked with observing, making note of what they found and not to engage. Unless fired upon, they would not be allowed to use their weaponry, either.
They heard a vehicle approach from several hundred yards behind them. Country music was rising into the blue overcast sky. The heat was stifling hot, and Lucas studied the gray clouds with more than a passing interest. A quick shower, even a downpour would be welcome in the nearly one-hundred-degree noonday heat.
The vehicle came into view. Both sentries watched the red Jeep advance into the woods, following the off-road trail. They were speaking to each other from about ten yards apart, their dialect sounding Pashtu, but Lucas couldn’t be sure. Kyle held up a small recording device with a plastic cone boost, trying to capture what was being said.
Two young girls in tank tops and cutoffs were in the front seat of the open-air Jeep, wearing baseball caps and sunglasses. One was singing to the words of the song on the radio.
Lucas was concerned at first they were wandering into a den of bad guys, but when one of the sentries waved to the driver of the Jeep, and the other one didn’t ready his weapon, he knew it was a planned or announced visit. The girls did not look Middle Eastern, but extremely westernized and young.
Lucas quietly cleaned the lenses on his binoculars, wiped down the scope he’d mounted to his H&K, inserted his fifteen round magazine, and then clicked off the safety, which was all they could do, since they weren’t on a snatch and grab or kill on sight mission. Armani was laying flat and had already sighted the camp below, while Kyle was focused on the sentries. That left Jake to be their eyes behind them his Glock at the ready.
Below them, the Jeep stopped, motor running, as the two girls inside began a conversation with the perimeter guards. The ladies turned down their radio and spoke with one of two guards, who leaned over the door of the Jeep as the other scanned the roadway and the hill above. Without knowing it, the guard looked directly at the Team’s position, and Lucas heard Armani hold his breath as his finger rested against the trigger mechanism after selecting his firing safety setting. As the guard looked away and the girls were waved through, Lucas noted Armando quietly release his breath, closed his eyes, and then retreated back.
Kyle took pictures of the compound, the approach, and close-ups of the guard gate and the sentries and where they were placed. There were several large trucks with closed beds parked at the side of the long building. A satellite dish and radio tower was installed atop one of the pine trees nearby. Kyle took pictures of that too.
Their LPO motioned for them to make their way back down the hill, and once at the bottom and out of sight, sprinted the way back to the creek, where they splashed water on their faces and down their shirts. Then they continued with the jog until they got back to their camp mid-afternoon. Lucas headed for the shower, for a cold one, soon followed by Kyle and the others.
Alex and Ryan hung around the doorway, waiting for him to finish in privacy.
“So what’d you find out?” Alex asked.
Kyle put his head under the water, rinsing off before he answered. “They’re used to having female visitors.”
“How’d you get that?” Alex asked, scrunching his eyebrows and forehead.
“They didn’t make the local girls cover up. Especially their heads.”
“Then there were the cutoffs,” Lucas added.
Alex was still not convinced. So Kyle hammered it in. “That would never happen to an un-westernized Iraqi.” He dried off and threw the skimpy towel around his waist. “Still can’t decide what’s in that building, but they’re moving something in and out of there with those trucks. They’re smart not to have people out in the daytime for the birds to spy overhead. We need to get our IR gear and visit them after dark. Begay has natural night vision so he’s coming. You in, Alex?”
“Sure, anything, Chief. After all, I don’t got a date.”
“He’s working to fix that as soon as is humanly possible. But the job comes first,” added Ryan.
“Tyler’s got his eye on Captain Blondie, that married sonofabitch,” said Armando.
“I think she’s sweet on Jake, from what I can see,” said Alex.
Lucas knew Tyler would not go outside his marriage, that the chance to converse with someone about soccer was the real draw. “I agree. Never thought the bachelors would hook up on this training. God is looking out for you guys.”
“You guys?” asked Kyle. The skimpy white towel barely tucked around Kyle’s trim waist and narrow hips. “Aren’t you in that league, Lucas? Connie’s got you by the balls, I hear.”
Lucas nodded in agreement. “Actually, I’m a little attached to my realtor. Got serious quick.”
“Holy fuck. You’re dumber than I thought, Lucas,” said Kyle. “That the realtor Connie hired?”
Lucas didn’t see any point to keeping it a secret. “Well, yes.”
“You ain’t even fuckin’ divorced yet.”
“That’s been pointed out to me, Chief,” Lucas answered.
“Unbelievable,” Kyle said as he pushed his way past the crowd.
Back at their room, Jake sat down on Lucas’ bed. “I need to talk to you a minute.”
Lucas was
putting on his jeans and a black Team 3 t-shirt.
“He said no logos.”
“Shit, you’re right. Just second nature.” Lucas removed the shirt, tossing it in the built-in cabinet, and unwrapped a new white t-shirt. He slipped it over his head. “Thanks, man.” He could see Jake was conflicted about something. “You okay?”
Jake looked at his hands, forearms resting on his thighs. “I’ve been dating that friend of Connie’s, remember?”
Lucas had forgotten all about it, mostly because, since his divorce, Jake never stayed serious with one woman for more than about a month. He figured that ship had sunk long ago.
“So this is serious then, that what you’re about to tell me?”
Jake grinned. “You know me. Fucked it up good this time. How did I know she had a sister that didn’t look anything like her? Still a babe and all, but man, I had no idea sisters could look so opposite and yet act so competitive. Real catfight. And then they turned it all on me.”
“Some people like that action, Jake.”
“Shut the fuck up motherfucker. I’m not talking about that.”
“Come on, Jake, you know sisters are bad news.”
“Like I said, I didn’t know!”
“Sounds like you dodged a bullet, my man.” Lucas slipped on his shoes. He combed his hair and put on aftershave. “Weren’t you the one all spouting off to me about staying single? Distrusting women? Didn’t we have that conversation? So she, or they, whichever it is, broke up with you. Big deal.”
“Well, yeah, that part’s okay. I mean, I’m used to it. But boy, these ladies these days talk. They even talked to my ex. Connie gave me an earful.”
“Well, you didn’t exactly behave, Jake. I mean, mine was just a picture. You went and did the dirty.”
“Not with a transvestite hooker.”
“Dancer. I don’t go with hookers.”
“That you know of.”
“Jake, just where the hell is this conversation going? You know full well I don’t date or sleep around at all. And I never did that while married.”
“You’re married now, asshole.”
“Yup, but she served papers on me.”
“You’re still legally married, you dumb-fuck.”
“That’s a minor detail. Thing is, Connie got some bad information, and believed I was—”
“That’s what I have to talk to you about.”
“Okay, I’m listening.” Lucas could see Jake didn’t want to tell him something and it was eating a hole in his gut.
“So the four of them are having lunch together, and—”
“Jake, you are one unlucky motherfucker. The four of them? Your ex, the sisters you’ve been banging and who else? Someone else you were banging?”
“No. Not exactly.”
“Jake what part of ‘banging’ don’t you understand? That’s like being just a little pregnant. We’ve had that talk, too.”
Jake’s expression became more painful.
“Holy fuck, you got the sisters pregnant, both of them?”
“Nah, man. Like I said, the four of them were having lunch, and apparently they told Connie—”
“Wait a minute, my Connie?”
“She isn’t your Connie anymore, Lucas.”
Alex and Ryan appeared at the doorway, as if on cue. Lucas glanced over at them and then put his hands on his hips. “Fuckit,” he said as he grabbed Jake by the shirt. “You fucked Connie, too?”
Alex and Ryan sprang to action and separated them.
“No way, Lucas. I wouldn’t do that. Honest.” Jake’s eyebrows tented upward, eyes squinting like he’d just smelled something terrible. He rubbed his forearm where Alex had grabbed him roughly. “I must have mentioned it to the one gal on our way out here. They wanted to arrange a double-double when we got back. Remember those, Lucas? Like we did before you married Connie?
Lucas could never forget those nights. “Before you were married, too, asshole.”
“That’s right. So, I told them you were seeing this realtor Connie had hired. They told Connie you were banging the realtor.”
Even though he’d confirmed one of his best friends hadn’t slept with his wife, Lucas still wanted to punch Jake as the deliverer of the bad news. Very bad news.
“Why did you have to tell me this?”
“Because it’s the truth, man. Thought you ought to know, since you said you were sweet on her. Knowing Connie and her temper, I’d put protection on your lady, Lucas.”
“Except I’m stuck in fuckin’ Tennessee. How the hell am I supposed to do that?”
“Well, call her, when you get the chance. At least give her a warning.”
Kyle stood behind Ryan and Alex. “We good here?” he asked.
Lucas nodded his head while the others just watched.
“We’re meeting in five. Rec Room.” Kyle said as he left.
Lucas knew it was the end of their private conversation. He was good at burying all his feelings over any deployment. One by one, the team collected in the rec area, as instructed.
Kyle was pouring over his computer. “Okay, I’ve uploaded the photos and sent the audio clip back to Coronado. Hoping we can get some confirmation on what to do next.”
Rory asked the next question. “You make them out to be Afghani? You think they were speaking Pashtu?”
“Yes,” T.J. said. His language training was the best in the team. “See if you can amplify it, Kyle and I’ll take a listen.”
“Roger that, T.J.”
The door burst open at the end of the bunkhouse and in walked Fredo, carrying boxes. “Hola, amigos! We got our Costco shit here,”
Accompanying him were Coop, Jeffrey, and Danny. Coop and Fredo unloaded boxes to the kitchen counters while Danny and Jeffrey sat down to assemble two tables and chairs and a TV stand which had all come in boxes. Soon several other members of the team took up positions in a circle.
“Okay, we got nice, fluffy towels,” said Fredo. We got two cases of beer, some waters, and sodas and shit. Kyle, got your fuckin’ turkey jerky.”
“Thanks man,” said Kyle.
“I bought condoms, toothpaste, deodorant, and aftershave for those dating, Red Bull, Gatorade, Monkey Butt powder, moist towelettes and some medicated ones for the old guys, hand sanitizer, detergent and dish soap,” Fredo continued. “Coop got his dryer sheets and mineral waters too, so he’s happy.”
“Razors?” Lucas asked. “Forgot to mention it.”
Fredo came over and put an arm on his shoulder. “Got you covered, my man, since you’re beard is ugly as shit.”
Lucas punched him in the arm.
“And for the record, no tofu or fresh vegetables. I figure frozen shit will work, lots of tortilla chips and salsa. Those of you into the healthier lifestyle can go to the fuckin’ market tomorrow.”
“Awesome!” Jake said as he opened up a box of chocolate bars.
Within ten minutes, all the furniture was assembled without anyone being in charge. The directions were passed around as needed. It was obvious the TV stand needed something on top, which would be one of the missions for tomorrow.
Two blenders and a coffee maker were set on the countertop. Coop filled new ice cube trays and placed them in the freezer. Fredo doled out a towel for each man.
“Okay, I’m going to say this one time, because about six of you have asked me,” started Kyle. “Yes, we’re having the ladies over tonight for a meet and greet. And here are some of the ground rules.”
Lucas and Jake looked at each other and rolled their eyes. The disagreement of earlier seemed to have dissipated.
“First, the bedroom doors are to remain open while they’re here. If you’re going to be unsociable and go to bed early, you go to bed with your door open and the light on in your quad room. Got it?”
The grumbling continued until Donna Grant showed up to announce dinner.
“Hold on, Boy Scouts,” Kyle shouted. “Got two more things to say. I need a volunteer to organi
ze a scrimmage tomorrow afternoon.”
Lucas and Tyler’s hands shot up.
“Okay, we got two. Perfect.” Kyle looked over at Fredo. “You need a donation of how much, Fredo?”
“Hundred bucks, gents,” Fredo said.
“That has to happen before the weekend. We have a signup list over on the refrigerator for anything you want that you can share. No promises, of course. Fredo here keeps all the money and there are no refunds.”
Lucas noticed a lined piece of yellow paper had been pasted to the refrigerator door with duct tape.
“I’m going to choose several to go up later tonight for a look-see at the camp with some IRs. We aren’t telling the girls anything about this, get my drift?” Kyle surveyed his men in front of him. “We might get a visit from DC and Forsythe in a few days, depending on what we find up there at the camp. He’s to bring some equipment I’ve requested. Again, no word of this to the ladies.”
Alex asked if the phone tree was in effect tonight.
“What do you think?”
That seemed to settle it.
“I’m sending Coop and Lucas to town tomorrow to talk to the barn contractor. On the way back, they’re to pick up a big screen and Blu-ray. We’ll wait for them before we start the scrimmage, okay?”
Lucas nodded to Coop, who returned his acknowledgement. They both understood neither would have the night shift tonight. It also meant Lucas might be able to call Nick and Marcy, and perhaps use the internet at a coffee shop.
“Anything else you need to know about?” Kyle searched the room. “Everyone good on the home front?”
Jake and Ryan punched Lucas in the arm.
“Not you, Lucas, you’re fucked,” said Armando.
Several of the men started to chuckle. He had to defend himself. “At least I’m not the only one. How many times has she taken you to court, Jake?”
“Every time I knocked her up.”
Amid the laughter, Kyle signed them off. “Okay, then. We’ll have a briefing after PT in the morning. Be safe tonight and get to bed at a decent hour. The midnight hike will be with Armani, Fredo, Danny and Alex.”
Kyle let them head for dinner. On their way to the door, he announced behind them, “Last one up cleans up the kitchen.”
SEAL Brotherhood Lucas Page 11