Blue Forever (Men in Uniform) (18 page)

29

Fifteen minutes later, Kip and the others came to a halt inside the tree line next to the road at the rendezvous spot. It was just after midnight, and there wasn’t a sign of life in either direction. Good. They were a little early, so there would be no surprises.

Finally, the hum of a car motor sounded in the distance. Kip cocked an ear and listened. It was getting closer.

Julie Severin? Or a PLA patrol . . . ?

“Incoming,” he murmured, and they all held their weapons at the ready.

Bright headlights swept around the bend, and the car slowed as it approached their position. It looked as though there were no passengers, just the driver. A woman. She pulled to the side of the road a few yards away, and peered around, looking for them. The headlights blinked off and on.

They held back under cover of the trees for a moment, to see if any other vehicles would appear. None did. So they all sprinted for the car.

“Ms. Severin,” said Quinn as they jumped in and she took off again. “Good to see you again. I just wish these were different circumstances.”

“Me, too,” she said, casting a quick glance at them through the shadowy car. Quinn was in front, and Kip and Alex were in the cramped back seat. “I think you’re crazy for trying this, but I’m so grateful you are. I don’t know what I’ll do if you can’t get Nikolai out.” Her voice cracked and she took a deep breath. “The idea of what they could be doing to him . . .”

“Don’t even go there,” Kip interrupted. “We’ll do everything we can to get him back for you.”

She swiped at a cheek. “This is payback, you know. For the embarrassment he caused the Chinese navy a while back.”

“Oh?” Quinn asked. “What did he do to them?”

She grimaced. “It was back when this whole operation started. When I, um, covertly
acquired
the navigational software for the new Chinese AUV. The small storage disk was hidden on Nikolai’s submarine, and the Chinese knew it. So they sent one of their nuclear subs after us, to get it back. Nikolai’s sub at the time was a kilo class. Hardly a fair fight.”

“Wait,” Kip said. “
You
were on a Russian submarine?”

She gave a watery smile. “Nikolai was transporting a scientific expedition that I was with, undercover. Anyway. He and Walker came up with some pretty creative ways to harass the enemy sub, and ultimately to shake them off. We kept the disk, and the Chinese were not pleased.”

“They also have very long memories,” Zane remarked. “Hell, no wonder they arrested his ass.”

“Do you think maybe that was their plan all along, and the diplomatic tour was just a way to get him within reach?” Kip asked.

“It’s possible. Finding the thumb drive he’d planted was exactly the excuse they needed to arrest him with impunity,” Quinn said.

“It’s almost like they were watching him, expecting something like that.”

“It could well be,” Julie agreed uneasily.

They drove in silence for a few minutes, each contemplating the implications of that supposition.

“Where are we heading now?” Quinn asked at length.

Julie glanced up and gathered herself. “Jaeger said to get you a room somewhere safe, so I went online and rented a small place close to the beach, where foreigners won’t stick out too much. It’s kind of a dump. I hope—”

“It’ll be fine,” Quinn assured her.

She passed him some papers that had been sitting on the dashboard. “This is a printout of the house information, along with a map showing how to get there.”

“Good. Where can we drop you? I don’t want you seen with us.”

She named one of the big hotels. “But I’ll take a taxi so you don’t have to deal with the checkpoints.”

Quinn nodded. “All right. Tomorrow, be sure to stay in plain sight, so they don’t suspect you of being part of the rescue. Don’t want to have to pull off another one.”

She shot him a quick, anxious look. “Oh, God. You don’t think—”

“Don’t go there, either,” Kip said, cutting off her burgeoning panic. “No sense buying stress.”

She jetted out a breath. “No. You’re right. I just have to believe that you’ll succeed, with no hiccoughs, and I’ll get him back safe and sound.”

“Amen to that,” Zane said soberly.

Quinn steered the conversation off the emotion and back on point. “Jaeger said you have the details of Nikolai’s transfer?”

Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “Yes. It’s supposed to be tomorrow at 8:20 a.m.”

“Kind of a random time,” Kip ventured. Seemed odd.

“Maybe,” Julie said. “But one thing I’ve learned about the Chinese authorities, they never do anything random. Unless it’s on purpose.”

They all digested that.

“Dissimulation,” she went on, “is their strategic cornerstone.”

Deceit and misinformation. Yeah. That fit.

“‘To take the enemy,’” she recited, “‘you must begin by making an artful appointment, and cajole him into going there.’”

Kip raised his brows at the quotation from
The Art of War
. Every Marine’s favorite book. But this feminine, sophisticated redhead didn’t seem the type to study warcraft. “Sun Tsu?”

She smiled weakly. “I’m on the China Desk at Langley.”

“Ah.” A spook. That explained a lot. “So you think the Chinese authorities are lying about Nikolai’s transfer time?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No. Not subtle enough.”

Okay.

“Eight-twenty does seem very specific for a lie,” Quinn said. “Why not eight? Or eight-thirty?”

“Exactly,” she agreed. “And they allowed that information to leak out. It all adds up to a very calculated plan. There must be a reason for it. A reason that will help them achieve their true purpose.”

“Which is?” Kip asked.

She eased out a breath. “The AUV test is at nine a.m., right?”

Quinn nodded.

“They’re making you choose. Sabotage the launch or rescue Nikolai.”

Kip frowned, not following her reasoning. “That makes no sense.”

“Sure it does. They believe they’re dealing with one man—the American spy they’ve been chasing. And he can’t be in two places at once.” She met Kip’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “The Russian spy is bait. To lure you out and capture you, too.”

His brows shot up. “You think this is about
me
?”

“You made them lose face in the eyes of the entire world, Major Llowell. They don’t like that.”

Okay, on a theoretical level it made sense. Sort of. But . . .

He shook his head. “How could they possibly have connected me, or any American spy, with Nikolai? He’s a Russian submarine captain! What would make them think I’d come to help him?”

She shifted gears as they drove around a curve. “The law of averages. Two anomalies occurring in the same place just days apart, both involving spying, and probably the AUV launch. They wouldn’t necessarily try to understand the connection. They’d just accept there is one and act on it.”

He leaned his head back on the seat and pondered that. It was subtle, all right. And a real stretch by Western, evidence-based standards.

But textbook Sun Tsu. “‘Begin by seizing something which your opponent holds dear; then he will bend to your will,’” Kip murmured, also quoting
The Art of War
.

She darted him a glance and gave a wobbly smile. “They probably know he’s engaged to an American CIA officer, too.”

Duh
. Okay, maybe not such a stretch, after all.

“So they pretty much know I’m coming for him.”

“Yeah,” she said. “And if not you, then someone else. They’d prefer if it’s you, but capturing anyone at all will allow them to save face.”

Now it all made an awful kind of sense.

“Okay,” he conceded. “So this whole transfer thing is a trap. For me.”
Great
. “What do we do instead?”

“The last thing they’d expect from you,” she answered.

“Which is?”

Her lips curved downward. “Hell if I know. I’m just an analyst. You’re the behind-the-lines intelligence operator.”

“Well, that’s a fucking shitload of help,” Zane muttered.

Thankfully, that got Julie to laugh—if a bit bleakly. At least she didn’t burst into tears.

Jesus
. If she was right, it was probably a good thing they didn’t have a set plan and were just winging it.

And he had a sinking feeling she was exactly on target. That itch on the back of his neck? It was bugging him now more than ever.

“Thanks for your insight,” Kip told her when they dropped her at a taxi stand in the busy nightclub district. “And have faith.” He wasn’t about to tell her not to worry. That would be just plain bad advice. “Sometimes having no plan is the best plan of all. Keeps you flexible and alert for possibilities.”

She didn’t look convinced. In fact, she looked worried as hell as she closed the car door and headed for the taxi line. More like she was barely keeping it together.

Her expression had reminded him all too much of the look on DeAnne’s face as he was lifted off the submarine and onto the helo. That face still haunted him. He’d really hated leaving his woman behind and on her own.

Except . . . she wasn’t on her own. She was there with Darcy Zimmerman and Master Chief Edwards.

And Clint Walker.

That
thought had him scowling, even as he lectured himself all the way to the fleabag hotel not to be a goddamn idiot. The man was
married
, he reminded himself as they dodged the pimps and hookers surrounding the roach motel’s entrance and checked in. She wasn’t
interested
in Walker, he told himself sternly as he showered and changed.

“Hey. What’s got your knickers all in a twist?” Alex asked as they settled down for a few hours sleep in their luxury suite.
Not
. Aside from the highly questionable clientele sashaying down the dingy halls, the beds were atrocious, the rug threadbare, and the bathroom less than sanitary. But the shower actually had hot water, and it beat sleeping out in the jungle. Just.

Kip scrubbed the glower off his face with his hands, and raked back his wet hair. “Nothing. Just tired.”

“Uh-huh. Don’t even try.”

He peered over at the other man. They’d already flipped off the light, but he could see Zane’s tall form stretched out on the rollaway, leaving the second twin bed for Quinn who was last in the shower. “Don’t try what?”

“You’re thinking about the woman. I can tell.”

“Who, Julie Severin?”

Alex snorted. “Hardly. DeAnne
Love
joy.” He drew out the syllable suggestively. “You’re wondering if she’s back there getting busy with the handsome and infinitely sexy Lieutenant Commander Walker.”

Kip stared at him incredulously. How the
hell
did he know that? “You find Walker sexy?” he retorted. “Your wife know about this?”

Alex’s white teeth glinted in the moonlight streaming through the curtainless window. “She’s the one who told me. She says most of his eight thousand Twitter followers are female. His numbers skyrocketed after all that hoopla about saving that cargo ship from terrorists last year. He’s a gen-u-ine hero in a spiffy white uniform. Women love that stuff.”

Twitter?
Was he kidding? “You mean his
wife’s
cargo ship?” He emphasized “wife” as much to remind himself—
again
—as Alex.

“Former cargo ship,” Zane corrected. “She quit that job, and now they’re sailing around the world together.”

Yeah, yeah. Kip knew all about the damn sailing trip around the world with the wife. An extended honeymoon, Walker had said. They were madly in love, blah blah blah.

“I take it you’re one of the eight thousand,” Kip said dryly, flopped back onto the lumpy bed and punched the rock-hard pillow, ignoring the annoying twinkle of Alex’s grin. Eight fucking
thousand
? Kip had . . . twenty-two. If you counted the guys in his unit.

“Nah. The wife is. Speaking of which. You going to propose, or what?”

Kip blinked at the abrupt left turn in the conversation. “To Walker?” he asked, being deliberately obtuse. And trying to figure out what the freaking fuck the man was driving at. “Hadn’t planned on it. Bigamy’s illegal, you know . . .”

Alex actually snickered. “You’re hysterical, Llowell. A regular Seinfeld. Anyway, want my advice?”

“No.”

“Just admit you’re in love with DeAnne, get down on one knee, and marry the woman. Save yourself a whole lot of irrelevant shit going down that you don’t want or need. Believe me, been there, done that. It ain’t pretty. Better just to accept the inevitable and get on with it.”

Kip didn’t even know where to begin to respond to that.

But Alex was not going to shut up. “That kind of love . . . it can save your miserable life. Trust me. Been there, done that, too.”

The tone of Zane’s voice had shifted, growing faraway and darkly serious, causing Kip to swallow his sarcastic comeback. “Yeah?” he said softly instead.

“Yeah,” Alex returned quietly. “Don’t throw it away, man. You’ll regret it. And a guy seldom gets a second chance.”

Just then Quinn came out of the bathroom, toweling his hair dry. “Second chance at what?”

“Doing things right,” Alex murmured solemnly, then rallied. “So I guess we’d better think about what Julie said, and figure this damn situation out.”