Forged in Ash (A Red-Hot SEALs Novel)
Page 1
Also by Trish McCallan
Red-Hot SEALs Novels
Forged in Fire
Praise for Trish McCallan
2013 RITA® Finalist, Best First Books
2013 RITA® Finalist, Best Romantic Suspense
“With so many stories about Navy SEALs out there, you might think there couldn’t be anything new to add to the subgenre, but McCallan will prove you wrong. Full of suspense with some paranormal elements too, her first entry in the Forged series is a pulse-pounding adventure.”
—4 stars, RT Book Reviews on Forged in Fire
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2014 Trish McCallan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
www.apub.com
ISBN-13: 9781612185347
ISBN-10: 1612185347
Cover design by Laura Jochum
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013915035
This book is dedicated to my family:
To Iris Rose Hahn—my grandmother, a beautiful woman inside and out.
To Ray Monsey—the best father a woman could ask for.
To Keith and Ann Monsey—I can’t tell you how cool it is to have other writers in the family!
To Val Morrow—my sister, who I don’t get to see nearly enough.
To Kevin Monsey—my baby brother, who’s all grown up now with kids (and it won’t be long before it’s grandkids) of his own.
Thanks to each and every one of you for your constant support!
I love you all!
* * *
Contents
* * *
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
SEAL Term Glossary
Arapaho Glossary
Acknowledgments
About the Author
A Note from the Author
* * *
Prologue
* * *
April
JILLIAN MICHAELS AWOKE to agony.
To every cell in her body screaming. In unison.
She pitched forward, her head slamming into something rigid. Through ringing ears came the unmistakable explosion of shattering glass, the shriek of shearing metal.
For what could have been forever she slumped there, the pain mushrooming up and out, consuming her, dragging her into a gray lethargy. Until something cold and wet plopped on the top of her head and trickled down the back of her neck, rousing her.
Something stirred in her mind, a vague urgency; she needed to remember something.
Something important.
She forced blurry eyes open. A dashboard took shape. A steering wheel. The fuzzy dangle of quilted dice attached to a key ring. She recognized the swinging dice, the jangle of keys, the small oval clock embedded in the dashboard—she was in her minivan. Had she been in an accident? Was that why every inch of her hurt? Panic flared, flashing through her like lightning.
She tried to straighten, but the agony grew fangs and claws—tore into her head, ripped through her chest, seared down her legs and arms. She wanted so badly to sink back into that blessed void, but she needed to remember something.
Something essential.
Her arms weighed a thousand pounds apiece as she lifted them to scrub the blur from her eyes. Her fingers came away smeared with blood.
She was bleeding.
The panic swelled again, pushing against the lethargy and her aching chest burned hot and cold.
Remember. Remember. Remember.
Her gaze, which was blurring again, locked on the swinging dice. And that shrill internal alarm went silent. The dice were mesmerizing. She focused on them, the soothing back and forth sway, while an image took shape in her mind.
Small hands handing over a messy square of tissue paper decorated with a trio of misshapen bows. “Happy birthday, Mommy. I made it all myself. Do you like it?”
Her brain snapped into crystal clear focus.
The kids? Were her babies in the van too?
“Bree? Wes?” Her voice emerged breathless, laced with a disturbing rattle.
She tried to turn and look into the back of the van, but the seat belt bound her in place. When she tried to move her head, the world went dark and dizzy.
“Wes! Bree? Lizzie. Answer Mommy,” she cried.
The silence that greeted her plea was terrifying. She scrabbled for the seat belt buckle, terror skittering through her veins as she tried to reach into that gray void and release the memory of what had happened.
Maybe the kids weren’t even in the van. They could be home, with Russ. Her brother was good like that, willing to watch the kids for a couple of hours. Yes. Yes. That made sense. The kids were probably home with her brother.
Please, please, let them be home.
Shaking fingers found the seat belt buckle and with a quick tug the two plates separated. The tension binding her shoulders vanished. When more icy wetness plopped on the top of her head, she glanced up. The moonroof was open. Was it raining?
Rubbing her eyes clear, she glanced at the windshield, and choked back a cry of horror. Water lapped at the top of the glass, and as she watched, the last sliver of glass disappeared beneath the waves. The car was sinking.
Her heart crashed inside her chest, then tried to climb her throat as she thrashed toward the space between the bucket seats. If her babies were back there, she had to get them out now. She would wake Bree and Wes; they could help her get the little ones to safety.
She caught a fuzzy glimpse of Wes’s blond head and limp body as she threw herself between the bucket seats. Oh God, he wasn’t moving. Neither was Bree, who was hanging forward against her seat belt beside her brother, her bronze hair shadowing her face. Jillian swiped the haze from her eyes, only to freeze as her vision cleared and the back of the van came into view.
The black fuzz blanketing her mind dissipated like thinning smoke and the memories flooded in.
A shrill, keening scream broke from her. And then another and another. And another…
“No. No. No.”
The cough of guns. Her babies crumpling. Blood. So much blood. A river of blood.
“No. No. No.”
A blow to her head. Another to her heart. Agony. Falling into a tunnel of black.
“No. No. No.”
Somewhere in the distance a woman screamed—broken shrieks of grief, of horror, of unimaginable loss.
Why? Why had they done this?
The very heart of her shattered, broken into a billion irretrievable pieces.
Why?
Amid the ruins of her soul, vengeance stirred, forged her existence into deadly purpose—a raw, pressurized force that sought only revenge.
The screams snapped off in mid shriek. Methodically, she backed through the space between the bucket seats and used the neck rest to pull herself up. Balancing on the driver’s seat, she reached for the edges of the moonroof. Her babies were dead. They’d been dead long before those bastards had strapped them into the van and sent them to this watery grave. If she remained in the van much longer, she’d join them.
Except…she couldn’t join them. Not yet.
She had to get out of the van. She had to survive.
And then she’d find them. Every last one of them. She’d find them. And one by one she’d make them pay.
* * *
Chapter One
* * *
July
LIEUTENANT MARCUS “COSKY” Simcosky held back a grimace as his mother straightened the trio of medals decorating the left breast of his naval dress whites.
“Relax, Mom,” he said calmly as he shifted his weight over his crutches. “It’s just a hearing, nothing to worry about.”
Marion Simcosky patted his chest and stepped back. But worry still clouded her gray eyes. “That’s what you and the boys keep telling me, dear.” She sent him a shrewd smile. “So why is half the fleet parked on the courthouse steps in their dress whites?”
It was hardly half the fleet. More like all 124 of his brothers from SEAL Team 7, and another hundred or so from his sister teams—the SEALs who weren’t out on rotation. They’d started arriving on the steps of the Seattle federal courthouse an hour before he, Rawls, and Zane had arrived.
That immediate and unconditional support was team life. Your brothers always had your back, even against the United States government.
Marion shot the closed grand jury doors an anxious look, her silver hair almost glowing in the cloistered light of the courthouse hall. “I wish you boys had taken Amy’s advice and hired an attorney.”
They’d considered hiring an attorney—for advice anyway, since legal counsel wasn’t allowed during grand jury testimony. But hell, in the end it wouldn’t have made a difference. They weren’t going to plead the Fifth. They hadn’t done anything wrong.
Lieutenant Seth Rawlings, who looked too damn pretty with his dress whites playing up his blue eyes, touched Marion’s elbow. “All they did was ask a fair amount of questions,” he said in his most soothing Southern drawl. “Nothing to get all worried about.”
Rawls had testified before the grand jury first and judging by his tousled blond hair, the experience hadn’t gone as slick as he claimed. His whitewashing was fine with Cosky though. Mom had been worrying about him nonstop since she’d arrived at Sacred Heart’s emergency room three months earlier to find him half-dead.
Hell, truth be told, she’d been worrying about him since he’d joined the teams, although she’d never admit it to him.
Just as she’d never admitted her fear all those years his dad had patrolled the streets of Federal Way.
A hard knock of guilt rocked him. He knew she was hoping the injury to his knee and thigh would sever his ties to the teams, that he’d retire and choose a safer profession.
But Christ, just the thought of sitting at some damn desk for the rest of his life made him want to blow something up. He’d been completely focused on becoming a special operator since Billy Pruett, his best friend since grade school, had introduced him to his grandfather, Commander Handel, SEAL Team 3, way back in junior high.
That day had defined his life, his mother’s as well. No doubt she cursed the day he’d met Billy on the playground.
Billy had rung out of BUD/s—twice—and they’d lost touch years ago. But Cosky made a habit of visiting Handel, that old bullfrog, anytime he was in town.
The hallway in front of the grand jury room was almost empty. Security had stopped the reporters and curiosity seekers at the courthouse doors—thank Christ—so when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye he shuffled around on his crutches to get a better look.
Beth, his LC’s fiancée, was headed their way after a trip to the restroom. She seemed to spend half her time in the can these days. Apparently the baby was sitting directly on her bladder.
“Is he still in there?” Beth asked as she neared them, shooting a worried glance toward the jury room doors.
Their LC, Lieutenant Commander Zane Winters, was on the hot seat at the moment. Cosky’s turn was next.
“It’s not these questions that worry me,” his mom said, a slight quaver to her voice. Worry lines bracketed her mouth. “It’s where their questions will lead.”
Beth reached out to rub his mother’s arm. “I’m sure this hearing is just a formality, Marion. They have the support of the public, the passengers from flight 2077, and Amy Chastain. There’s no way the grand jury will actually indict.”
When the double doors opened, Cosky straightened too fast and winced at the grinding pain that ripped through his knee. It was already swelling. He could feel the pressure against the compression sleeve.
Zane’s calm green eyes locked on Beth as he exited the room and he offered her a reassuring smile. Cosky knew how much the smile cost his CO. Zane hadn’t wanted Beth anywhere near the courthouse, just as Cosky hadn’t wanted his mother here. With their names and faces splashed across every damn paper and television in the county, he, Zane, Rawls, and Mac were walking, talking bull’s-eyes. Every terrorist cell they’d spent the past fourteen revolutions hounding would be swarming after them like hornets to honey, which put the people they loved at risk.
When reporters had tracked his mother down, Cosky had moved her out of his childhood home and into a rental under an assumed name.
Not that he and Zane had any luck keeping the women home. They’d been determined to support their men.
The double doors opened.
“Lieutenant Simcosky?” The jury forewoman asked, a polite smile on her middle-age-softened face. “We’re ready for your testimony now.”
She held the double doors open for him and followed him into the wood-paneled room. A collection of men and women sat in an elevated jury box to his right. Facing them was the witness stand. Cosky swung his way over to it and seated himself. The forewoman waited until he’d stowed his crutches, before she stepped up to administer the oath—to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Which they’d been doing from day one—not that it had done them a damn bit of good. They’d still ended up in this box, in front of the grand jury.
The federal prosecutor rose from the table across from him and approached him with a casual, pseudo-friendly air. “You understand that these proceedings are merely a fact-checking investigation into the events of March twenty-ninth and thirtieth?”
Cosky simply nodded.
What the bastard wasn’t mentioning, according to Amy Chastain—who should know considering she’d been a highly decorated FBI agent prior to her marriage and had testified in plenty of grand jury rooms—was that his fact-checking investigation could easily turn into a criminal investigation and from there into an indictment.
“State your name for the record, please.” The prosecutor slowly ambled into the center of the room.
“Lieutenant Marcus Simcosky, Officer in Charge, Squad 1, Alpha Platoon, SEAL Team 7.”
“Thank you Mr. Sim—”
Cosky calmly continued listing his credentials. “Fifteen years of active duty with Naval Special Warfare Group 1. Fourteen deployments in Afghanistan, Iraq, Paki—”
“Mr. Simcosky.” Raising his voice, the prosecutor cut Cosky’s recital off. “This proceeding acknowledges your service to our great country.”
“It’s Lieutenant Simcosky,” Cosky responded flatly. “If this court acknowledges my service to this country, then it must also recognize the service of Commander Mackenzie, Lieutenant Commander Winters, and Lieutenant Rawlings. In which case, it no doubt recognizes that it’s our combined sixty-plus years of covert ops experience in tracking, assessing, and handling terroristic threats to the United States of America that made us particularly ca
pable of assessing and reacting to the events in question.”
“Lieutenant Simcosky,” the grand jury forewoman broke in, her voice quiet, but firm as she nudged the hearing back on track. “You were booked on flight 2077. Is this correct?”
Cosky gave a tight nod. “Yes, we were on leave. Flying to Hawaii for a buddy’s wedding.”
“Could you please take us through what happened that day?”
“While waiting to board the bird, we were notified that flight 2077 had been targeted by hijackers. Intel indicated the guns were already on board and that the group intent on jacking the flight had already taken two birds in Argentina and slaughtered the passengers.”
“And where did this information come from?” the prosecutor asked.
“Through fresh intel off a covert op, the details of which are classified,” Cosky said.
The grand jury sure as hell didn’t need to know the fresh intel had come courtesy of one of Zane’s handy-dandy premonitions.
“Commander Mackenzie notified John Chastain, special agent in charge of the Seattle field office’s counterterrorism division. Our orders were to stand down, keep an eye on the Tangos, and let the feds sweep things up.”
The jury forewoman nodded her understanding. “At what point did you realize the Seattle field office was compromised?”
“As soon as Mac made the call to Chastain. Within minutes the hijackers tried to depart the gate.”
“Isn’t it true you broke protocol and stepped in to detain the suspects, regardless of your stand-down orders?” the prosecutor pounced.
Cosky raised his brows and stared him squarely in the eye. “We believed it was advisable to hold the suspects until the feds arrived. Would you have preferred that we’d let the suspects go so they could target another bird?”
“When did you suspect Agent Chastain was compromised himself?” The jury forewoman sent the prosecutor a quelling glance.
“We knew that Agent Chastain had been compromised the next morning. He approached us in secrecy and admitted he’d been tapped. He told us his wife and sons had been kidnapped to force his compliance. He requested our assistance in locating and freeing his family.”