Rescuing Kassie: Delta Force Heroes, Book 5

by Stoker, Susan

  Kassie couldn’t keep her grin from escaping. Looking around the table, she noticed that neither did most of the other men. They were all smiling straight out. So she ignored Hollywood’s outburst, merely squeezed his fingers in thanks for standing up for her, and continued, “Anyway, he told me that I was to see if I could get any information from Hollywood, or any of the other guys, about if you’d be going out of town anytime soon, any details about your girlfriends, or anything else I thought might be useful.”

  “Useful for what?” Blade asked quickly before anyone could get riled up about Jacks wanting to know about Rayne, Emily, or Harley.

  “I don’t know,” Kassie said. “If I did, I’d have told him something by now. After meeting all you guys, I didn’t want to say anything that might get you hurt.”

  “Has he contacted you since the ball?” Truck asked.

  Kassie nodded. “He’s texted a few times. I told him I was still seeing Hollywood and that I was trying to find out something he could use.”

  “How did he take the delay?” It was the commander who asked that time.

  “He called me and said I was a cunt, and that I better tell him something useful soon or Karina would find herself sold to a sex trafficker and flat on her back in Mexico.” Kassie shuddered at the thought. That hadn’t been a good day, and Hollywood had talked her down from kidnapping her own sister and moving to Timbuktu.

  “Shit,” Beatle swore.

  Kassie heard the others mumbling under their breaths, but didn’t catch anything as Hollywood turned her to face him with a hand at her cheek. “You’re doing great, sweetheart. Hang in there.”

  “Thanks,” she whispered, not feeling like she was doing well at all.

  “The last thing we want is him turning his attention to one of your women again,” the commander noted quietly after the mumbles from the Deltas quieted down. “The trouble is that it’s going to be hard to prove Jacks is behind any of this. We want Kassie to feed Dean information to give Jacks, but I’m not sure how to prove he’s orchestrating this entire fucking thing from behind bars.”

  “But if we take out Dean, that’s who’s currently the most threatening to Kassie and her sister,” Hollywood mused, “Jacks might recruit someone else to help him, but by then we’ll have hopefully figured out another way to take him down…and again, Kassie will be safe.”

  “Good point,” the commander agreed.

  “What about another training exercise?” Truck asked.

  “Yeah,” Blade said, picking up on where Truck was going. “If we have Kassie tell Dean that Hollywood told her he’d be going out of town and he’d be unable to talk or see her for a few days, we could then lie in wait for whoever showed up to try to interfere.”

  “And if we made it somewhere away from this area, they’d have to travel to get there, which would mean Karina and Kassie would be out of their range while it happened,” Hollywood added.

  “Galveston,” Ghost decided. “It’s far enough away, but we can say it’s a maneuver related to ISIS and them trying to smuggle shit into the country via ships.”

  “That’s pretty specific for a generic Army exercise,” Fletch noted. “And Galveston isn’t exactly remote.”

  Kassie’s head whipped back and forth as the men narrowed down and refined their thoughts. She was kind of in awe at how well they bounced ideas off of each other.

  “Not Galveston,” the commander said excitedly. “The Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge. It’s down there nearby, but mostly all grassland, and of course it’s unpopulated. We can set up a fake command center near Christmas Bay. We can use another team of Del— err…men under my command here.”

  “What’re the chances Jacks will decide that all of us being gone is the perfect opportunity to snatch our women?” Coach asked. “There’s no way I’m going to leave Harley and the others as sitting ducks while we’re down there with our thumbs up our asses, waiting for an ambush that might never happen.”

  “That’s always a possibility,” Ghost said. “He’s already proved that he’ll use our women to get to us. But I’m hoping his arrogance and the opportunity to take us all out with one fell swoop will be too much for him to resist. Why go after them if he can kill us all at the same training exercise?”

  “I already said that I’d watch Karina and Kassie,” Fish stated into the silence that followed Blade’s statement. “If Rock isn’t working, I know he’d come up and keep an eye on the girls.”

  “I bet I could get Rayne to have one of her girls’ nights in when we’re gone so they’re all in the same place,” Ghost mused.

  “They could come here on post,” the commander volunteered. “We’ve got a guest house they could commandeer. They wouldn’t be safer anywhere else.”

  “Don’t underestimate this asshole,” Hollywood grit out between clenched teeth.

  “Annie loves coming on post,” Fletch said. “There’s that new platoon of female Army Rangers, right?”

  The commander and Fletch shared a look before the commander said, “Yeah. What are you thinking?”

  “We say that Annie and the women are invited to the post to watch the women go through the obstacle course. Annie loves that shit. Then they’re treated to a special dinner where they get to mingle with the women and learn more about what it means to be a woman in a male-dominated organization like the Rangers. Afterwards, they can all spend the night here on the post. I’m not saying the Rangers need to be briefed on everything that’s going down, but they can be made aware there’s a threat against Rayne, Emily, Harley, Mary, and Annie.” Fletch had obviously thought it through.

  Kassie blinked in surprise. She’d heard of the Army Rangers, but had no idea women were allowed to join. Richard would hate that. He’d tried out for the elite group, but had washed out pretty early in the selection process. Any woman who could make it through would be badass for sure.

  “That could work,” the commander mused. “They’d be protected in case Jacks doesn’t take the bait. Let me see what I can do.”

  “When?” Kassie blurted. When everyone turned to look at her, she said quickly, “Karina’s dance is in two weeks. I don’t know what ‘watching over us’ means, but there’s no way she’ll want to miss it. She’s been looking forward to it for weeks. She’s even buying her dress this weekend. She’s got a new boyfriend and hasn’t been as excited for a dance like she is this one.”

  “Actually, I think that works out well,” the commander said. “If she’s at the dance, in public, especially with a new boyfriend who hopefully won’t let her out of his sight, I think she’ll be safer.”

  Kassie wasn’t sure about that, but didn’t say anything.

  “While you guys are down at the refuge, I’ll be watching Kassie,” Fish stated.

  “No. Permission to skip the ambush and stay in Austin to protect Kassie,” Hollywood stated firmly, staring at his commander. “Fish can stick with Karina. He can’t be in two places at once.”

  “Don’t you think you should be at the fake training exercise to lend authenticity to it? If Kassie tells Jacks about it, he’d expect you to be there.”

  “If everyone is dressed in fatigues and has face paint on, it’ll be almost impossible to tell who is who. Especially for whatever ragtag army he’s collected. They won’t know if I’m there or not. Get someone from the other team of…the other team to stand in as me.”

  “You don’t have to stay with me,” Kassie protested. “I’ll be fine. It’s you guys Richard wants.”

  “Permission granted,” the commander stated, not giving Hollywood a chance to reply.

  “Thank you, sir,” he told him, then turned to Fish. “I’d appreciate your backup though. Pleased as shit you’re done with rehab. Sucks the Army is losing as good a soldier as you though.”

  “You got it,” Fish stated, then smiled. “But don’t get used to it. I’m still moving to Idaho as soon as the sale of the house I bought goes through.”

  “You bought a house?” Tru
ck asked. “Thought you were just looking.”

  “I was. Found one I liked.” He shrugged. “Still have to fill out all the paperwork and give the lending company a kidney or two, but it’s in the works. House inspection is next week.”

  “Couldn’t be happier for you,” Truck said, slapping Fish on the back. “I can’t wait to see it. Hope you don’t think you leaving means you’ll get away from us.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. I’ll have a housewarming barbeque when I get there and settled in.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Truck told him.

  “So we’re good?” the commander asked.

  Everyone agreed, but Kassie looked around in confusion. “Uh…I have no idea what was decided,” she said honestly.

  Hollywood picked up her hand and kissed the palm before wrapping his fingers around it. “You’ll tell Dean that you overheard me talking about a top-secret training exercise down in the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge near Galveston. You heard me saying that it was going to be a small platoon-on-platoon thing. That should pique his interest because he’ll have a better chance of taking us out. The girls will all go to a demonstration by the Army’s newest super soldiers…who just happen to be women. Your sister will be safe at her dance. I’ll hang with you at your place, Fish’ll be on standby, and when Dean and his flunkies show up, we’ll kick their asses and get them arrested for interfering in a government training exercise.”

  “What about Richard?” she asked.

  “I’ll take care of him,” Fish said before the commander could.

  “Now, look here, Munroe. You said that before, you can’t—”

  “I can. And I will. All due respect, sir. You know as well as every man in this room that in order to kill the snake, we have to cut off its head.”

  Kassie swore she’d be able to hear a pin drop in the room; it was that quiet.

  Finally, the commander stated softly, “When are you moving, Munroe? Because the sooner you’re out of my hair, the better.”

  Strangely, his words seemed to make everyone relax.

  “As soon as my VA loan goes through and I sign the papers for the house, I’m out of here.”

  “Anything I can do to hurry that along, just ask,” the commander stated as he pushed his chair back and stood. “The rest of you, I’ll talk with the general and get this shit sanctioned. But the same rules will apply this time as the last. This is a nonlethal op. The US Army can’t go around killing people because of threats against girlfriends.”

  “This is not about a threat against my girlfriend,” Hollywood growled. Kassie hadn’t ever heard him sound so angry. She tried to release his hand to give him space, but he wouldn’t let go as he continued.

  “This is a threat against national security. Jacks is doing all this from behind bars. How’s he doing that, hmmm? He has to have help. Traitors working up at Leavenworth aren’t an issue anyone can take lightly. Think about the kind of prisoners who are incarcerated there. They’re not exactly upstanding citizens, and Jacks is child’s play compared to some of the men who are behind bars up there. You want violent criminals or gang members getting information to their followers? Rapists? Murderers? Traitors who made connections with the Taliban or ISIS? No fucking way. I don’t put my life on the line with every mission to have some asshole prison guard who makes ten twenty-five an hour turning his head when a prisoner makes a phone call to his contact in fucking Afghanistan, or when he passes information to his cronies when they visit.”

  “Hollywood—” the commander warned, but Hollywood ignored him.

  “Jacks is an amateur asshole. None of us is concerned about him or his flunkies, but we are concerned about how easy it is for Dean to drive up to Kansas and meet with him. We’re disturbed about how easy it is for Jacks to blackmail his ex-girlfriend when he’s supposed to be locked away for the safety of society. If he can do it, what else is going on up there? What other information is getting shared and what other collaborations are being made?”

  “You’ve got a point,” the older man said in a low tone, “but your disrespect isn’t necessary.”

  Hollywood took a deep breath. “Noted,” he bit out.

  Mollified, the commander nodded then looked at Kassie. “Talk to Dean. We need to get this shit done. Reach out to him if necessary, but get it done.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kassie said meekly, relieved when the commander merely nodded at her, then left the room.

  She sagged back into her chair after he’d left and said softly, “Good Lord. I thought you were bossy, Hollywood.”

  There were a few chuckles around the room, but Fish wasn’t smiling when he asked, “Are you okay with me looking after you and your sister when Hollywood can’t be in Austin?”

  “Uh, yeah?” Kassie responded, confused. “Why?”

  “Because of this,” he said, gesturing toward his prosthetic. The hook on the end of his arm opened and closed where it rested on the table, as if making Fish’s point for him.

  Kassie looked over at Hollywood, who was scowling at Fish. She turned back to the other man. “I’m sorry…I still don’t understand.”

  “I’ve only got one hand, Kassie. Aren’t you worried that I won’t be able to protect you as well as one of the other guys who have both?”

  Kassie stared at the man for a brief moment, then burst out laughing. It was more a release of tension than anything else, but she couldn’t control it. Eventually, she wound down to giggles instead of full-out laughter and took a deep breath, trying to control herself.

  “You about done?” Fish ground out.

  Kassie sobered at the hurt tone of his voice. Shit, she hadn’t meant to insult him. She looked over at the former soldier. He had a beard, which was cut close to his cheeks, but he’d let it grow a bit longer at his chin. The facial hair combined with the sharp, lethal hook on the end of his arm made him look more badass than the other men sitting around him. Not less.

  “I’m sorry, Fish, but seriously, that was funny. Do I think you can’t protect me? Even with missing part of your arm, you look more dangerous and ferocious than anyone I might meet on the streets of Austin. I have no doubt whatsoever that if for some reason Dean shows up at my apartment with an ax, you could singlehandedly take him out and make him wish he’d never even heard my name. So yeah, I’m perfectly okay with you having my back when Hollywood isn’t there.”

  Her words rang out in the austere conference room.

  Finally, Truck broke the silence by saying, “Told you, Fish. Maybe now you’ll shut up about how crippled you are.”

  Everyone chuckled and Fish shook his head at his friend. “Fuck off, Truck.” But his words held no malice.

  Hollywood stood, and held Kassie’s chair still as she did too. “We’ll see you all later at Fletch’s, right?”

  Choruses of “right” and “of course” rang out from amongst the group of friends.

  “Ready to go, Kass?” Hollywood asked.

  She nodded, figuring since he was already leading her to the door of the room with his hand on her back that was the expected answer.

  Chapter 13

  After the meeting, Hollywood whisked her straight out of the building and to his car without more than a chin lift to the few people he passed. He got her settled into his car then quickly got in and headed off post.

  “You hungry?”

  “Aren’t we going to a barbeque later?” she asked.

  “Yeah, but that’s not for at least another three hours. Then we’ll shoot the shit with everyone and hang out while the brats and burgers are cooking. So it’ll be four to five hours before we eat. Figured you’d want something to tide you over. The bagel you had for breakfast—he glanced at his watch then continued—“four and a half hours ago, has probably worn off by now. Besides, I could eat.”

  “Right. When you put it that way. Yes, I’m hungry.”

  He smirked. Hollywood could tell she was uneasy with everything that had just happened, but he much preferred seeing
this snarky side of her than the unsure and scared one. “Good. What do you want?”

  “Whataburger.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Whataburger,” she repeated.

  “Really, don’t vacillate. Tell me exactly what you’re hungry for,” Hollywood teased.

  She turned in her seat and crossed her arms. “You asked,” she accused.

  Hollywood smiled huge. “I did.”

  “So I told you. Would you rather I have said, ‘Oh, Hollywood, I don’t know. Wherever you want to eat is perfectly fine with me. I don’t have any opinions about anything, so just say the word and that’s where we’ll go.’”

  He burst out laughing, shaking his head at the same time. “No. Absolutely not. I’m just not used to it. Hell, even when I’m with the guys, it takes a massive fucking discussion to decide on a place to eat. I’m thrilled you can make a decision.”

  She smiled back at him, not at all put off by his laughter. “Good. Because I have to tell you, I have extreme opinions on fast food restaurants. Some I love, others I hate, a few I’m ambivalent about. But when I’m hungry, I’m hungry, and I want what I like. You do like Whataburger, don’t you?” she asked suspiciously, raising one eyebrow at him as she asked.

  “Of course. What Texan doesn’t?”

  “Exactly.” She nodded happily. “Wait, I don’t even know where you’re from. Did you grow up here?”

  “Nope,” he told her easily, as he headed toward the nearest Whataburger. “Fayetteville, North Carolina.”

  “Fort Bragg is there,” Kassie informed him of something he knew. “Is that why you joined the Army?”

  Hollywood shrugged. “Maybe. Of course we saw soldiers in their uniforms all the time. But I think it was more because my dad is a history buff. I grew up watching every military movie you can imagine. Being proud of my country was ingrained in me from a young age. When I graduated from high school I knew there wasn’t anything I wanted to do other than join up.”