She nodded tightly at that. “Great. How’s your head? And remember, you’ve never lied to me, so don’t start now.”
Thomas couldn’t help but laugh at that. “My head has been better,” he admitted. “But the headache will pass.”
“I couldn’t believe it was happening again,” she whispered, clearly thinking about all those years ago, when they’d been playing on the rocky shore of that lake, when her mother’s ex had appeared, sucker-punched him, then grabbed her.
“I couldn’t either,” he admitted. Not again... “Tash, I’m so sorry.”
She stopped him, cold. “God, no,” she countered. “It’s not your fault. If we’d turned around, back when you first wanted to—”
“Nah.” Thomas wasn’t going to let her take the blame for this. “Neither of us expected this. You were right when you said this is not Afghanistan. This isn’t your fault either.”
“Well,” she said, “I’m pretty certain that if I’d stayed in San Diego, the way Mia wanted me to, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
He couldn’t argue with that.
Tasha made a sound that might’ve been laughter if they been sitting out on Alan and Mia’s back deck instead of hiking through the New England pines in the waning daylight. “At least this time I’m old enough to know that you’re ridiculously hard to kill. But... why did they take your clothes?”
“Maybe they didn’t want to kill me outright...?” Thomas shook his head. As a SEAL, he didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about why. His focus was on how to successfully complete his mission—keeping Tasha safe—with his current pile of challenges. “I’m just grateful you had something in your bag that fit me, or this walk would be even more chilly.” He made a sweeping gesture down his body. Her over-sized pink sweatshirt was tight across his chest but it was the shockingly loud red plaid PJ pants that really brought the crazy to the table. They ended well above his ankles, which was a strong look with the fuzzy slipper socks that were now sodden from the rain-drenched pine needles. “It’s pure luck that I look so fine, too.”
Tasha couldn’t hide her smile. “The pants are awesome.”
“The pants,” Thomas agreed, “are awesome. I’m loving the pants pretty damn madly.” He started back up the mountain, glancing over his shoulder to make sure she was still following. “In fact, even after Uncle Navy picks us up tomorrow morning and I get myself some real pants...? I’m keeping ’em. You’re not getting ’em back. They are now mine, forever.”
She laughed at that. Exactly as he knew she would.
And her laughter was exactly what they both needed to push their pace just a little bit harder.
Coronado was on lockdown.
Rio had never seen the kind of security that was buzzing around every entrance to the base.
Well, he’d seen it. He’d just never seen it here, in CONUS—the continental United States—before.
Generators were running, so there was power. But just a few blocks away from the base, the traffic lights were out.
There wasn’t a special lane for military personnel—anyone going onto the base was going through the full check, which included both explosive-sniffing dogs and a mirrored device that allowed the guards to confirm there wasn’t a bomb in Gertie’s elderly undercarriage.
It seemed to take forever, but Rio was finally cleared and through the gate, and heading toward the SpecWar building where Team Ten lived.
Senior Chief Harvard Becker was out in the parking lot—his truck had been just a few vehicles in front of Gert. Mike Lee—one of Rio’s besties from BUD/S, now a lieutenant junior grade—and Dave Patterson had just arrived, too, coming in from another gate.
“You know what’s going on, Lieutenant?” Harvard asked Mike before Rio could ask the senior chief—usually all-knowing—the very same question.
“Not a clue.” Mike shook his head, looking from Rio to Dave. “Cell service is down—I can’t even text. Anyone get onto social media?”
Rio shook his head, and it was a big fat no from Dave, too.
Whatever this was, it was definitely bad—that much was clear.
There was a crowd in front of the elevators, so they took the stairs, double-time, up toward Team Ten’s CO’s office.
Captain Joe Catalanotto was already out in the hall, decked out in camo instead of his usual summer whites. He was on the move toward the command center.
“Good, Senior, you’re here,” the CO barked as he saw Harvard emerging from the door to the stairwell. “I need two SEALs to report to Admiral Francisco, on the double. Tasha and Lieutenant King never arrived at the Ustanzian compound and—”
“I’ll go.” Rio and Mike spoke at the same time. If Thomas King was in trouble...
But the Captain shook his head. “No, I need my officers, the entire world’s on fire,” he said. “Lieutenant Lee, you’re with me. Senior, catch up ASAP.”
Rio realized in that moment that the CO’s no didn’t apply to him, so he quickly turned to the senior to plead his case. “If Thomas King is missing,” he started.
But Harvard didn’t need to hear it. “You and Mike know him better than anyone,” he said, already on board. “You’re it. Dave, you’re with Rio. See what the admiral needs.”
Chapter Seven
“I’m trying not to think about ticks,” Tasha admitted. “Or spiders.”
“That’s smart,” Thomas’s voice was quiet in the darkness.
“You weren’t kidding when you said it would get dark fast out here.”
“Yeah, I’m just dressed like a clown.” His voice floated back to her from where he was tending the smoldering remains of the small pit fire he’d lit—easily, thanks to Tasha—or rather thanks to the lighter she carried in her jacket pocket. He’d put the flames out when the daylight first started to fade, telling her that he didn’t want whoever might be following them to see the glow in the darkness.
But that fire had crackled merrily away for a while, and had done the trick both to dry their damp clothes and to warm the hide—which was what Thomas called the little lean-to of branches and forest debris that they’d half-dug, half-built into the hillside.
As Tash had helped him as best she could, considering her hands were still cuffed, he’d explained that the only reason he was building a fire was because of the smoke that was already hanging heavily in the air.
The current low-hanging cloud cover was keeping the smoke from escaping, Thomas had continued in his narrate-a-nature-video tone. Normally, in clear conditions, smoke from even a small fire like this one would be the equivalent of a neon sign announcing We are here! and Come and get us! But with the amount of smoke both from the exploded SUV and whatever else was burning already hanging in the air, their smoke wouldn’t stand out.
The sun hadn’t seemed close to setting when Thomas had first announced that there was no way they’d be able to hike all the way to the Ustanzian compound tonight, and that they’d need to stop so he could build them this shelter.
The very first thought that popped into Tasha’s head in giddy response was: We’re finally gonna have sex!
Her stupid imagination had immediately concocted a glorious story—she and Thomas, clinging together for warmth in a far less tick-slash-spider-filled shelter than this one. Whispered talking would lead to banter would lead to heated glances, which would lead to a kiss and then many more kisses... which eventually would lead to them both shedding their clothes, orgasming wildly, and then proclaiming their undying, endless, and epic love.
She knew it was ridiculous, and yet...
They’d both survived a fiery, explosive death today. So even if the proclaiming-undying-love thing was admittedly a stretch, the idea of two healthy, grateful people having whoop-whoop, we’re both alive sex didn’t seem all that far-fetched.
Except for the fact that one of them was her and the other was Thomas King.
Back when they’d first stopped walking, Thomas had given her a long list of very non-we-gotta
-have-sex reasons why they couldn’t push on to the ski lodge; why they had to stop for the night even though it was still daylight. As they continued, the incline would get far more steep and at times even treacherous. They’d have to use their hands—and hers were still cuffed. No way was he willing to attempt that blind.
Because out here, he’d grimly told her, when it got dark, it got dark.
“Not a lot of kidding is gonna be coming out of my mouth between now and tomorrow morning,” Thomas informed her now as he checked the temperature of one of the large rocks he’d placed along the bottom of the fire pit. Apparently, instead of snuggling together for warmth, they’d each get cozy with a rock or two, like a caveman’s version of a bed-warmer, “when we extract via Uncle Navy’s rescue helo.”
“You weren’t kidding is just an expression, Thomas. Jeez,” Tasha countered, more irritated at him than she had the right to be. Except, no. She’d escaped death today, too. “No need to clutch your pearls and go all Navy SEAL on me.”
He laughed at that. “And now I’m wondering—hard—about the dress code for the Ustanzian special forces. Pearls?”
“You know what I mean,” she said, instead of shouting, For God’s sake, stop treating me like I’m your little sister!
Because even though he’d started this with his whole Not a lot of kidding thing, she’d purposely said clutch your pearls to get the laugh that she’d wanted. And gotten. He’d obliged.
It was a game they’d played back when she was much younger, back when Thomas had babysat for her, twice, sometimes three times a week, and then later, when they’d just hung out, watching movies. He’d intentionally take whatever she said literally. It had always made them laugh themselves silly, but revisiting it here and now just made her feel sad and tired.
Of course, maybe she was just sad and tired. It had been a truly stupid day.
I do love you. You’re my little sister.
“You always hated camping,” she said to break the silence that was stretching on a little too long.
“Still do,” Thomas said evenly. “This isn’t camping. It’s SERE, with an emphasis on the S and the Es, and right now I happen to love it very much.”
SERE—as every family member of a Navy SEAL knew—was a military acronym for survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. Back when Thomas first realized that he aspired to be a SEAL, he recognized that although his San Diego-born-and-raised background gave him the swimming and boating skills required, his mountain-man type living-off-the-land abilities were lacking. He talked the SEALs in Team Ten into giving him a crash course in SERE training—and hated every minute of it.
Not that he’d complained to Bobby or Wes or Captain Catalanotto. But he’d shared his pain with Tasha, who’d giggled both at his stories and the fun he’d poked at his own despair. And then, it started to snow became their laughter-infused callback to any situation that went from bad to worse.
“You sure you don’t have, like, a pin or a pen or anything metal?” he asked her now, clearly hoping for some way to get these handcuffs off her.
She sighed heavily. “I’m still, sadly, not a time traveler from the early 1900s, so my supply of hatpins remains zero.”
Back after he’d started to rub two sticks together and she’d countered by pulling out Ted’s cigarette lighter, they’d done a quick inventory of the contents of her jacket’s pockets: a few folded tissues, two quarters and a dime, and a receipt from Dunkin’ Donuts, probably from Logan Airport.
She wasn’t wearing any jewelry except her earrings, which were studs. They’d already determined that the metal posts that pierced her ears were too small to use to pick the cuff’s lock.
Thomas had asked if she had any bobby pins in her hair, but he hadn’t known what to call them, so he’d reached and come up with hatpins. Her mockage had been mandatory.
“No other...” He cleared his throat in the darkness. “Larger piercings, like...” His dot-dot-dot hung in the rapidly cooling air.
Tasha waited.
Thomas cleared his throat again. “You know.”
“Like nipples or clit?” she asked, overly chirpily cheerfully loud.
And yeah, she completely blew him up. She could feel him wince as he verbally flailed, “No, I mean, well, yes, but no, I was thinking more like, belly button...?”
“Nope, nope, and nope,” she announced, then sing-songed, “Sorry.”
He half snorted, half laughed. “No, I’m sorry I asked.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“One last problematic question,” Thomas said.
“Oh, good,” she said. “Problematic. Perfect for this environment.”
“Does your bra have, you know, one of those wires?”
Whoa. That stopped her pathetic attempt to make more jokes in the face of this awfulness. “Really? You can pick a lock with an underwire from a bra?”
“I could do it with a plastic straw,” he said, adding, “in about three hours with a crapload of luck. It’s easier with a piece of metal or hard plastic.”
“Well, okay,” Tasha said, “because this one’s a yes.”
But even as she spoke, she realized the logistical issues. Like most women, she was able to take off her bra beneath her clothing—even beneath a long-sleeved shirt—but there was no way she could do that magic trick while her hands were cuffed. She was currently wearing a jacket over a sweater over a shirt—over her bra. Peeling off all those layers wasn’t an option either, again thanks to the cuffs. And no way would she want to rip or tear any of her clothing. Even if she could manage it without a knife or scissors, doing so would make for an extremely chilly walk in the morning.
Still, she didn’t need to take the bra off, did she? No. She just needed to extract one of the wires from beneath one of the cups.
Tash tried to reach up under her jacket, under her sweater, under her shirt—but the handcuffs plus the bulk her clothing made it impossible for her to...
She unzipped her jacket and tried again and...
“Do you need...?”
“Help?” Tasha finished for him. “God, I hope not.”
He made a noise that she took to mean agreement as she checked...
“Oh good, the clasp is in the front.” It had been a lifetime since she’d gotten dressed for this trip, and she’d long since forgotten what bra she was wearing. “Bras have two wires, one for each cup. The wires can be accessed from either side.” Now Tasha was the one who sounded like a documentary film narrator. The Amazing Wonder of the Modern Underwire Bra. “Under each of my arms, and also at the center, by the front clasp.”
“Okay.” He sounded uneasy, as if she were asking him to do something, but she wasn’t—please God—so she kept her narration going.
“I’m checking to see if... See, the bra I’m wearing isn’t all that new, and sometimes, even with normal wear and tear—” Who the hell said wear and tear outside of an infomercial? She sounded like a voiceover plugging an indestructible travel dress that doubled as a parachute and could be folded into a lifeboat. “—the underwire can start to wear through the fabric at, you know, one of the pointy ends, and it might not take all that much effort to pull it free.”
But as she spoke, she’d checked under her left boob, with her left arm twisted awkwardly up beside her armpit, and there was definitely no fraying happening there. Both points of wire that met near the center clasp were far easier for her to access with those cuffs on, but also equally secure behind the fabric. If they had a scissors... But they didn’t and... There it was. On her right side, beneath her right arm. Serious frayage where the wire poked through, just a teeny, tiny bit. Which was odd, because her left boob was bigger and surely that created more wear and tear... Focus! It wouldn’t take much effort to worry away at the area, create a small hole, and pull the wire free. She hoped.
Problem was, she was severely right handed, and the handcuffs made that hand all but useless, matching her equally useless left hand. Either way, with her wrists at
the odd angles necessary to reach up to nearly her armpit, she’d have virtually zero strength in either of her hands.
She tried unfastening her bra, but because of all her layers that didn’t make it any easier—plus now her boobs were flapping around, too, so she quickly refastened it.
“Welp,” she told Thomas. “I’m afraid I am gonna need your help with this.”
He sighed. It was just a little sigh—just a small breath in and an exhale clearly designed to brace himself.
“At least it’s not your worst nightmare,” she tried to cheer him up. “You’re not removing a piercing from my—”
“Hoo-yah,” he said.
“I’ve never heard it called that. But go, Navy SEALs.”
He laughed. “I wasn’t... I was trying to... I meant, you know, hooray. As in yay.”
“Yay,” she echoed flatly. “Right. Okay, so here’s the deal. Up here.” She raised her jacket, sweater and shirt as high as she could—which wasn’t very high—as she felt him shift closer. “Under my right arm.”
His hand was warm as he slipped it up under her clothes, as they both pretended that this wasn’t full-on hideously awkward. His fingers landed much too far back, but at least on the stretchy fabric of her bra instead of her skin.
She continued her instruction. “Now slide toward the front. You’ll be able to feel the wire, it curves up and around to that side of my... lady part. For the sake of propriety, let’s call it Rufus.”
He made a sound that was a vague mix of pain and laughter. “Breast is fine,” he informed her briskly. “I’m a hospital corpsman. I’m familiar with anatomy.”
“Rufus is safer. I don’t want you to faint. Good thing it’s my right boob, though, because the left is named the Duchess of Alfrakazondia, and all the HRH-ing would get tedious.”
He laughed again as she felt him find the end of the wire, his fingers slipping slightly onto her bare skin. She tried not to shiver at his touch.
“Here, I have to...” he said, shifting her so that they were sitting even closer together—she was securely between his legs now—as he brought his other hand up to her bra, too. “I can’t find the hole.”
King's Ransom: (Tall, Dark and Dangerous Book 13) Page 6