“Otherwise known as the Bullshit Twins.” Kin nudged Shane’s shoulder, his eyes twinkling with good humor. “And I’ll be warnin’ ya now, don’t be playin’ poker with ’em. They tend t’cheat.”
“Do not.”
“Do too.”
“Children!” Mother’s voice cut through the good-natured banter. “There’s one more team member, but he’s out of the country at the moment. Uri Ben-Asher, formerly a member of the Israeli Defense Force, with a period of service with Mossad. Ben-Asher has some interesting…abilities, but I’ll let him share them during the course of your training.”
She glanced around the table then focused on Duke. “You know Dalton and Tank, of course. Duke’s talent lies in his ability as a sniper. It doesn’t hurt that these three are also specifically adapted to underwater work.”
The other men erupted into seal-like honks and hoots before Mother’s glare silenced them. “Training begins tonight. We’ll adapt to doctor’s orders for now so you get days off. Be ready to leave for the key at sundown.”
“Have we got a mission, mum?” Kin’s blue eyes sparkled with mischief.
Mother just glared. “Y’all get the hell out of my bar. Duke, you stay.”
Duke settled back into his chair as the others shuffled out with slaps to his shoulder and murmured words of welcome.
“Shut the door behind you, Dalton.” Mother waited until their voices drifted away. She slid a folder across the table so that it stopped in front of Duke. “Here.”
While Duke opened and read the information inside, Mother crossed the room and poured a cup of coffee from a carafe. “You want?”
He looked up to see what she was talking about. He had to swallow hard before his voice worked enough to say, “Yeah, thanks.”
The typed words on the page swam, and he blinked hard. Eye strain. That’s all it was. Tears were not streaming down his cheeks. They’d been set up. SEAL Team Atlantis. They’d been sent into Africa with no plans for their extraction. Tank and Dalton told him how they got out—laying low and getting to the embassy in the Sudanese capital via UN convoy. And he now understood why they’d been split up and sent on those other missions where they allegedly died.
While the Navy hadn’t necessarily left him blind on purpose, they also didn’t make a very concerted effort to restore his sight. They’d expected him to die in the hospital. When he didn’t, they relied on his spotty memory and the grief and guilt of losing his team to keep him in line. Considering the apathy he’d experienced, they’d almost right about him. If it hadn’t been for Mother…
He looked up at the woman sitting across the conference table. “Why?”
“Because you’d become inconvenient. Plus you knew about the Wolves. And the Area 51 labs that were destroyed by that same group of Wolves. Your team did a hellava job covering up the situation in Virginia, Duke, but The Powers That Be figured it out.”
“We’re fucked.”
“Not anymore. You work for me now.”
He studied her. He’d pegged her somewhere in her fifties or sixties with no-nonsense blue eyes and silver hair that bespoke a wealth of experience. What he wanted to know is what kind of experience and how she gained it. “Who are you, Mother?”
“Fair enough. My name is Madelaine Gander. I’ve been Mother Goose since I ran a squad of deep cover agents for the CIA thirty years ago. Before that, I was an undercover operative. I currently represent a multi-national defense group that goes in where individual countries can’t. We take on terrorists, drug cartels, spies, and any other bad guy that needs personal attention.”
She leaned back in her chair and sipped her coffee before continuing. “Bear’s real name is Oswald Berwyn. He is also a Wolf, but his talent lies with electronics and computers. He’s not just my bartender and bouncer but my executive officer as well. As my XO, if Bear gives an order, it might as well come from me. Understood?
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
Mother studied him, head tilted to one side. “There’s a reason I need a sniper, Duke. And I want you. We do wet work. A lot of it. Will that bother you?”
“Who determines the bad guys?”
“Themselves. By their record, their actions. We go after the worst of the worst, Duke. We get all the hard targets. So that’s our code name. Hard Target.”
“Roger that.”
“You in?”
He didn’t need to consider her offer but he took a moment to think it over anyway. He’d been betrayed by practically everyone but the two men waiting outside for him. The flyboys came to get him out when no one else would and it wasn’t a big stretch to figure out Mac McIntire had called Mother for help. She’d given him his sight back. And a new purpose to his life. He wasn’t a hero, but he was damn good at his job. His answer was easy.
“Oh, hell yeah.”
She smiled and reached across the table with her hand. He accepted it for a shake. “Then welcome aboard, Duke.”
Chapter 12
THREE MONTHS. And Duke just thought the six-month-long BUD/S training for the SEALs had been tough. He had no idea how the strictly human members of the Hard Target team were still alive. The two Wolves were tough—stronger, faster, and as Dalton said, they took a lickin’ and kept on tickin’, plus they healed much faster than a human.
He, Tank, and Dalton excelled in the water—thanks to their special abilities. While he was the most out of shape due to forced inactivity based on his injury, even the other two former SEALs were whipped by the time everyone crawled into their bunks at night.
Mother had moved them to an unoccupied key, one that reminded him of SEAL Team Atlantis’s former base. Hard Scrabble Key didn’t have much going for it besides a couple of huts, white sand, and the ocean.
Uri Ben-Asher joined them about a week after Duke received full medical approval to train. He brought with him a very large Belgian Melanois dog, named Moshe, and a Barbary falcon the Israeli called Golda. Duke discovered Uri’s absence was explained by his need to retrieve the critters from Jerusalem.
Introducing Moshe to Kin and Lochlan in their wolf forms had been interesting. That’s when the team learned the full extent of Uri’s abilities. The tall, quiet man with dark hair and eyes that resembled his raptor could communicate mentally with both his K-9 partner and the falcon, and with the Wolves in their canid forms as well.
As Duke got his strength back and the team learned to work together, he discovered he belonged there. His life had meaning again. Purpose. Working with the team felt like coming home in a sense. Tank and Dalton looked to him for orders out of experience and habit. The Air Force guys had been officers so they technically outranked him, but they had their own established chain of command based on area of expertise, and it worked out for the team to follow suit. As time passed, the rest of the team accepted his leadership in the water and during ground exercises.
Mother finally sent Bear with a boat to pick them up. Rumor had it a mission was brewing, but like waiting for a storm to hit, the anticipation had the whole team antsy. Most days were spent working out or at the gun range. Nights were spent carousing at Mother’s or like, tonight, gathered around the pool at the Barracks in a ritual of male bonding—which tonight meant beer, steaks, and poker. Except for Tank, who sat off to one side reading.
Tank was a big bear of a man. He handled large caliber weapons like they were Nerf guns with hands the size of small hams when he fisted them. Tank was the guy you wanted on your side in a bar fight. While slow to anger, he never pulled punches—physical or verbal. And Dalton loved to poke the sleeping bear.
“Dude. Seriously?” Dalton kicked the glass and wrought iron coffee table just hard enough Tank’s bare feet thunked the tiled patio at the same time the front legs of his chair hit with the force of a small earthquake.
“What the fuck’s your problem, Cali Boy?” Tank closed the book he’d been reading, using his index finger as a bookmark.
“This has got to stop, dude. I mean it this whole re
ading Bukowski in your underwear thing? It’s giving us SEALs a bad name.”
Loch and Kin laughed and clinked glasses filled with dark, foamy ale. “Aye,” Kin agreed. “I’ll be drinkin’ t’that.”
“Plebeians.” Tank shoved to his feet. “You don’t even know who Bukowski is.” The big man wandered off, scratching his chest and snarling under his breath.
“You got that right.” Dalton flashed an unrepentant grin. He glanced toward Duke. “I bet you don’t know who Bukowski is either.”
Duke offered a sly grin. “Wanna bet?”
“Not with money. That’s reserved for poker. So, smart ass, who is he?”
“A Sixties underground writer based out of LA. Not quite as famous as Hunter S. Thompson, but they shared some similarities. You should brush up on your Google-fu, Cali Boy.”
“Naw, too much work. Who’s ready to lose some money?” Waggling his brows, Dalton watched the other members of the team with a predatory gleam in his eyes. “Shuffle those cards, suckers.”
Duke pushed off the lounger where he’d stretched out to doze after a massive meal of steaks grilled on the patio. He had no complaints about the lifestyle the team enjoyed, thanks to Mother. “You boys have fun.”
“Where you off to, boss man?”
“Going for a run, Cali.”
“Copy that.”
As Duke left, he heard the scrapping of chairs as the other guys gathered around the large, glass table where they’d shared dinner. Normally, he’d be right there in the thick of things, but he felt a little off tonight. They’d been working to become a team for a couple of months. It was a strange feeling, getting close to these guys, almost like he was forgetting about Copper, Wilco, Cookie, and Poison.
SEAL Team Atlantis had been together from the beginning, the seven of them totally in sync. Now he was readjusting to having sight after living in darkness for almost a year, fighting to get back in top physical condition, and then, to top it off, integrate into a well-trained and smooth-operating assault team. Sometimes, he felt like he’d missed a step.
A run would help clear his head. He headed toward the ocean, only a few blocks from the house, running shoes pounding on pavement. The thudding beat changed to a wet slap as he hit the beach. Arms pumping in perfect synchronicity with his steps, lungs filling and emptying, he moved between sand and sea. Without thinking, he veered into the waves, kicking off shoes as he stripped out of his clothes and dolphined into the surf.
Water closed over his head, and his gills expanded. Winnowing into deeper water, Duke found a slight current and tapped into it. With lazy kicks and strokes, he swam in a blissful dream. He’d missed the water far more than he could ever admit when he was blind. Now, hardly a day went by when he didn’t get wet. As much as he hated being a lab experiment, he wouldn’t give up his gills.
Curious fish darted around him and the occasional boat chugged on the surface of the Gulf. Swimming in the still, dark depths like this gave his brain a chance to quiet, to sort out things. It was as close to finding peace that he could get. As they sometimes did, his thoughts turned to the woman who’d teased his dominant tendencies to the surface.
Duke easily admitted he was an alpha male but the whole D/s scene was foreign to him and hadn’t ever pinged on his radar. Until that night. Maybe he’d just needed to have control over some small part of his life. Whatever it was, he was sorry the woman had disappeared. He’d like to give her another go now that he could see what he was doing.
He’d checked around town for the redhead. Just the thought of her sent blood surging south. Even in the colder water eighty feet down, his damn dick was so hard he could use it for a fuckin’ rudder. As he swam, he relived the feel of her beneath his hands. Satiny skin and that mass of hair thick and silky in his hands. Her slender throat and the purring sounds she made as he stroked in and out of her.
Some day, he might talk to Dom to find out if the guy was serious about the sexual lifestyle he insinuated he enjoyed. Duke would never have guessed dominating a woman in bed as he had the angel would turn him on so much. He hadn’t been rough. Demanding, yes. Commanding, definitely. But if she, at any point, had seriously resisted, he would have stopped the game immediately. Still, the episode had empowered him at a time when he seemed to have so little control over his own life.
Curious, he’d done some research into the lifestyle. He didn’t really want to be a full-time Dom, nor did he want a submissive underfoot. He got the appeal of it, but his life was too complicated as things stood. That didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the occasional foray into certain aspects of it with a willing partner.
Drifting with the current, he flipped to his back. A thought nudged the edge of his conscious brain. Angie had seemed so familiar—the way she sounded, the way she felt beneath his hands, the way she touched him. A tremor shuddered through him as he remembered the feel of her fingertips tracing his scar. She hadn’t seemed surprised. She hadn’t asked about it. That sense of déjà vu slammed into him once more.
Voices washed over his consciousness—some he recognized, some were only hazy dreams, like watching the full moon play on the surface of the sea as he swam beneath it.
Is there any chance? A woman’s voice, one that struck deep in his soul.
No.
But he’d proved the doctors wrong. Him and Doc Pemberton and Mother Goose. He had his sight back. He was physically fit once more—in fighting shape. And his vision was as acute as ever when he locked on a target through the scope on his sniper’s rifle. He belonged to a team again. Hard Target. Hooyah.
Flipping over, he stroked hard, legs kicking with real power now. Sleek, silver shapes appeared around him. A dolphin pod. He swam silently while they cavorted around him. Curious creatures, they edged closer. He ran his hand down the slippery side of one who ventured close enough. The dolphin veered away but soon returned, and Duke touched it again, this time catching the dorsal fin. With powerful tail flips, the dolphin carried him along.
When the world is cold and dark, think of me. The words, in the voice that haunted him in still, quiet moments, came echoing through the clear, deep water of the Gulf of Mexico.
Oh, he did. He thought of the princess every fucking day. But his world wasn’t cold and dark any more. He needed to excise her memory like… How had she explained being able to shoot a man? Like a surgeon removing a tumor. He should excise his memories of her like a surgeon cutting out a fucking tumor. Except she’d grown around his heart. He’d have to slice it open to get her out.
He swam for hours with the dolphins, surfacing when they did, laughing at their chatter before diving deep to follow them. Close to the surface, the water was warmer and it felt like silk sliding across his skin. The nictitating membranes on his eyes gave him clear vision, though there wasn’t much to see in the dark. During daylight, the sandy sea bottom would be alive with life and color, the coral reefs a fascinating place to hang out and observe. But tonight he was content to simply slide through the saltwater, swimming effortlessly.
The dolphins finally abandoned him to follow a school of fish, and he dove deep again, deep where the light from the moon and stars didn’t shimmer across the waves. Duke returned to land as exhaustion began to slow his strokes, completely at peace for a change. His clothes remained where he’d left them. Dressing, he watched the eastern sky lighten from dolphin gray to salmon pink to Caribbean blue.
Waves lapped at his feet and, as one receded, he noticed a water-smoothed stone half buried in the sand. He bent to retrieve it. White, with pink striations, the thing was vaguely shaped like a Valentine. Taking it as sign, Duke straightened, drew his arm back, and he flung the rock into the ocean.
“No more dark, baby. It’s all light now, so I don’t need you anymore. G’bye, princess.”
Duke turned toward town and the house. Maybe today would bring the orders he’d been waiting for. Maybe today, he’d be able to prove his words.
Chapter 13
THE HELICOPT
ER’S blades chopped through the humid air, sending vibrations through the flight deck into the soles of Duke’s boots. Dom and Bo flew with maximum confidence and minimum talk. The BS twins had their chins tucked to their chests, helmets pulled low, snoring in a duet tolerable only because Bo had turned off their headsets and microphones.
After receiving orders, they’d boarded a C-130 cargo plane and flown to Barbados. There, the team unloaded the UH-60A Blackhawk, set up for troops and equipment. They’d shared the cargo hold with the helo. Once they were airborne, their course took them almost due south, passing under the radar east of Trinidad and Tobago, headed toward the coast of Venezuela.
Even though Hugo Chávez, the former Venezuelan dictator, was dead, the team’s presence would not be welcome. The new regime was no more open to a US military presence than the old one. This trip, they were after a colonel in the Venezuelan army who liked to live the high life—literally and figuratively. He’d set up his own cartel to facilitate the smuggling of cocaine into both the US and Europe. The team didn’t need the addendum to the asshole’s file that he also trafficked in humans, but that fact sealed his fate. He was a dead man.
Mother was right, Duke decided. The scumbags signed their own death warrants. Their assignment was to cut off the head and dismantle the operation. Scorched earth options remained open. Loch was all but salivating. He’d spent the trip from Key West putting together “packages” guaranteed to provide big-bang surprises.
Duke’s chest constricted as he pictured Copper, the same look of glee on his face, when he played with blocks of high explosives. For you, Copper. And Poison, Wilco, and Cookie. He would avenge their deaths sooner or later.
After an hour’s flight from Barbados, the helo came in hot over the Orinoco River delta. Skirting the populated areas, the Hard Target team headed toward the interior, with its mix of hills and jungles. Intel put the colonel at a hillside villa near El Palmar. Dom, Bo, Brady, and Shane would head back to Barbados after the ground team hit the jungle.
Double Cross (Hard Target Book 1) Page 10