Into the Storm (15 page)

“We should split up,” she said. “We need to get that message to Alyssa. Why don’t you give me the radio, and I’ll go to a higher elevation and—”

“I’m not leaving you alone out here,” Dave said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.

Dave was climbing, his intention obvious—to try that radio he was clutching like it was his favorite teddy bear.

Sophia scrambled after him.

“Okay,” Dave said, “wait, wait…” He moved even higher, slipping the headphones over both his ears. “Yes!”

“Finally!” Sophia said.

“Yes,” Dave said into the microphone. “Malkoff here, with an important message for Alyssa Locke, over.”

“Just broadcast it,” Sophia said. “Because if the radio goes out again…”

Dave held up his hand in an attempt to quiet her. “Yes,” he said. “We’ll need to change the plan drastically. The enemy’s taken the hostage. Repeat, the SEALs have Lindsey, over.”

“Tell ’em it was my fault,” Sophia said.

Dave said something to her that Izzy missed, because Jenk was not just tugging on his sleeve, but flat-out hauling him backwards.

“We don’t have Lindsey,” he told Izzy.

“What? How do you know?”

“Our radio’s working now, too,” Jenk informed him grimly. “I just spoke to the senior chief. We do
not
have Lindsey.”

L
OCATION
: U
NKNOWN
D
ATE
: U
NCERTAIN

The putrid smell of blood was making her sick.

Five had vomited, all night long, until her stomach was empty, until there was nothing left to purge, and still she’d heaved and coughed.

The darkness surrounded her, sometimes heavy and hot, sometimes brittle and cold, as she alternately shivered and sweated.

Number Four came, as she often did when he left her alone and the night went on and on and endlessly on, but this time she still had all of her face. This time, she sobbed and begged, “Finish me, please, finish me,” as her blood seeped through her fingers, onto the concrete basement floor. “Don’t let him take me upstairs!”

“I didn’t know,” Five tried to tell her, tried to explain.

But then she was gone, and the light was up even brighter, glistening off of Connie Smith’s golden hair, flashing off that knife blade as it slashed Five’s arm.

And then she was on the floor,
her
blood oozing through her fingers, as Connie Smith advanced.

But Connie’s eyes filled with fear before she could move any closer. They filled with sheer terror and shock and hurt—
how could you?
And then they glazed as her life sprayed, warm and wet across Five’s face and arms.

Her mouth moved, small and tight above that giant gaping grin.
How could you?

“I couldn’t,” Five gasped as her body spasmed with the endless wrenching pain, “let him take you upstairs.”

E
AST OF
S
AN
D
IEGO
, C
ALIFORNIA
T
HURSDAY NIGHT
, D
ECEMBER
8, 2005

Jenk went Rambo.

Izzy had seen it happen among the SEALs of Team Sixteen only a few times before, and of course one of the times he himself had been the guilty party, but he’d never in his wildest dreams imagined that Marky-Mark would ever do it.

But he did.

He just took off in the same direction that Sophia and Dave had gone, as if Izzy didn’t exist. He didn’t mention a plan, he didn’t even say good-bye. He didn’t try to be quiet, he didn’t try to conceal himself. He just elephanted up the trail.

Of course, Starsky and Hutch were too busy yakking about their deep innermost feelings to notice an elephant attack, so it probably didn’t matter. Except for the fact that there was going to be an unavoidable point of contact.

And what then, Marky-Mark, huh?

Izzy loped after him, staying far enough back to be able to dive for cover, but close enough to watch the action unfold.

Not that there was more than about two seconds of action.

Dave heard Jenk coming just as Jenk shouted, “Hey!” breaking war-gaming rule number three: Never engage the enemy with a shout calling yourself to their attention.

Sophia and Dave both turned, but Sophia managed to mess Dave up. She was too close to him, making it impossible for him to sweep his weapon into firing position.

And Jenk—WTF, M?—just blasted them. Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat.

Sophia and Dave looked at each other, looked at the now-black stripes on their sleeves, looked back at Jenk, who was still running toward them, still talking to them.

“Where did you lose Lindsey?”

They looked at each other again, like, who did Jenk think he was, Haley Joel Osment? “We’re dead,” Dave said.

“Fuck that. Excuse me, ma’am. I heard your radio transmission,” Jenk said, “I know your team doesn’t have Lindsey. We don’t have her, either.”

“You don’t?” Sophia said.

Dave was sitting down, and he tugged on the bottom edge of Sophia’s jacket, trying to get her to sit, too. “The rules state—”

“Fuck the rules,” Jenk said. “Excuse me, ma’am. Look, I’ve come to know Lindsey a little bit over the past week, and this would be something she’d definitely do. Try to escape on her own. But the desert is very different from the streets of LA. There are dangers she may not even know about. Bobcats, coyotes, wild dogs—”

Izzy came closer. “Dude, she has a better chance of being abducted by aliens than attacked by wild dogs or coyotes. They just don’t go after people—”

“Yeah, the attacks I’ve heard about have all been children,” Jenk said. “But Lindsey’s tiny—”

“She’s also a competent, trained police officer—”

“Who is currently unarmed.” Whoa. Jenk was seriously, ferociously worried.

“I’m sure she’s all right,” Dave tried to reassure him. “You know, I shouldn’t be telling you anything, but Decker is tracking her. I’m sure he’s found her by now.”

“Decker’s dead,” Izzy told them. “Sophia killed him when she iced Lopez and Gillman.”

“What?” She was indignant. “I did not.”

“Yeah, you did,” Jenk confirmed.

She turned her intensity onto Dave. “Did you know…?”

“No.” He was shaking his head. “I didn’t. Honest.”

“We were following him. He didn’t find Lindsey,” Izzy said.

“Yeah,” Jenk said, “but maybe he knows where she is.”

“He’s dead,” Izzy reminded him—like that was going to stop Jenk-bo.

He was already striding back to where they’d seen Decker die. Sophia was following.

“We’re dead,” Dave reminded her.

“Fuck dead,” Sophia said, in a damn good imitation of Jenkins. “I’m helping Mark find Lindsey.”

“I tried to pick up her trail,” Decker said. “But there was nothing there.”

“She’s still out there somewhere.” Lieutenant MacInnough was convinced of this. The big burly SEAL officer had been in charge of setting up a perimeter and containing the “terrorists” to one area. “She didn’t get past my men.”

Tom and Commander Koehl had called a halt to the exercise, using the radios they all wore to send a “game over” message, asking everyone to gather down by the parking lot near the Quonset hut—both the living and the dead.

Although, Dave noticed, a rather large percentage of participants on both sides of the exercise had black stripes on their sleeves. Usually, in an exercise like this, it was easy to identify the winners from the losers. Here, however, they were all losers, since the main goal was possession of the hostage.

And no one knew where that hostage was.

Jenkins was a pit bull. He wanted to bring searchlights back to the place where Lindsey had last been seen, to check the area more carefully. He wanted to call in a helicopter and do an infrared search from the air. He wanted to bring in loudspeakers, so they could make an announcement telling Lindsey to come in. He wanted his own head, on a platter, for sending Lindsey out without a radio of her own.

He wanted to do anything besides stand around and talk. Especially not in this faintly party atmosphere, where both mistakes and triumphs were being discussed and—quite often—laughed about.

Sophia was surrounded by her fan club—including the two SEALs she’d killed. Dave knew that, as usual, she was keenly aware of Decker. She kept glancing in his direction. But despite that, Dave could hear her laughing, which still felt like a miracle. He was never going to forget the look on her face when he’d had her penned in, in that cave. He was still kicking himself for putting her in that situation, for forgetting just how terribly vulnerable she was.

She was vulnerable, and fragile, and courageous as hell, simply for getting out of bed each morning. Forget about participating in an exercise like this one.

Dave wandered back over to Jenk, who looked ready to grab one of the weapons and kill them, all over again.

Alyssa Locke beat him over there. She was trying—like everyone else—to reassure Jenk. “I know it’s hard for you, coming from the boys-only atmosphere of the SEALs, but Lindsey
can
take care of herself. Tom had her dress like a bar bunny for a reason—so that you and your teammates would underestimate her.”

“I’m not underestimating her,” Jenk insisted.

“She’s nothing like Tracy,” Alyssa pointed out. “If it were Tracy out here,
then
I’d be worried.”

“Yeah.” Jenk was seriously distracted. The moon had risen, and he was looking out at the variety of cars and trucks in the parking lot. “Excuse me, ma’am, I’m sorry, do you know—did Lindsey drive here?”

“I’m not sure,” Alyssa said.

“Yeah, she did,” Dave volunteered. “When we first got here, she told me about stopping for dinner, and how this cop asked to see her driver’s license because he thought she’d stolen her mother’s car and…”

Jenk was gone.

He was running down the rows of cars. Dave followed, curious. Izzy was right behind him.

“What’s he up to now?” Izzy asked.

“I think he’s checking to see if Lindsey’s car is still here,” Dave told him.

“Yo, she drives a white hybrid,” Izzy shouted.

“I know,” Jenk shouted back. “It’s not here. Throw me your keys.”

Izzy fished in his pocket, tossed a key ring over to him.

“What’s he doing?” It was Dave’s turn to ask as he watched Jenk opening the passenger-side door of a truck.

“I don’t know,” Izzy admitted. “But that’s my ride. We drove down here together. Maybe he’s getting something from his bag.”

As they got closer, they could see that Jenk had indeed gotten something—his cell phone. He held it to his ear, pointing to a parking space in the next row over, empty in the midst of all those vehicles.

“You don’t know she was parked there,” Izzy said.

“Were you parked almost directly across from Zanella?” Jenk said into his phone.

Was he talking to…?

“She was parked there,” Jenk announced.

“Looks like he found her,” Izzy said. “Did you find her?” he asked Jenk who nodded. Yes. “Jenk found her,” he shouted—words to draw a crowd.

Jenk was laughing at whatever Lindsey was telling him, his relief making him lean against the truck. He wiped the sweat from his face with his free hand. “Jesus, you scared the crap out of me. Yeah…Yeah, okay. I will. I’m…glad you’re safe.” He hung up his phone. “Lindsey’s at the Ladybug Lounge,” he told them. “She wants to know what’s taking us so long.”

“She got past us?” Some of the SEALs still couldn’t believe it. “No way.”

Both Commander Koehl and Tom Paoletti had come over.

“About time someone checked the parking lot,” Tom said to the commander.

“It was one of mine,” Koehl pointed out. “Good job, Jenkins.”

“Yeah, you guys lost, and you know it,” Tom scoffed.

“Your team lost, too.”

“Yup.” Tom smiled happily. “Losing provides such good life lessons, don’t you think, Lew?”

“Absolutely, Tom.”

Jenk was staring at them both, his mouth open. He finally found his voice. “You set this up? You knew where Lindsey was this whole time?”

“I didn’t know she was at the Bug. Did you?” Tom asked Koehl, who shook his head, no. “That’s pretty impressive. She’s definitely the winner here.” He shot a pointed look at Koehl. “
She’s
one of
mine.
”

Jenk interrupted, raising his voice so everyone could hear him. “Lindsey says if we can get over to the Bug in the next forty minutes, the first round’s on Tommy and Commander Koehl.”

“Oh, really?” Tom said.

Jenkins shrugged expansively. “Sorry, sirs. I’m just reporting what she said to me.”

Tom exchanged a glance with the commander. Apparently words weren’t needed between the two COs of SEAL Team Sixteen, one past, one present. Koehl nodded, and Tom said, “Well then, what’s everyone still standing around here for?”

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

M
ark Jenkins must’ve been on his cell phone for the entire drive over to the Ladybug Lounge.

Lindsey knew this because the Troubleshooters and the SEALs from Team Sixteen came into the bar in one huge, massively organized group that could only be Jenk’s doing. They all dropped to their knees on the grungy wood floor, kowtowing before her.

Sam Starrett and Alyssa Locke. Decker, Nash, and Tess. The SEALs’ scary-looking senior chief. The team’s even scarier XO, Jazz Jacquette. Enlisted and officers alike—Nilsson, Muldoon, MacInnough, and many more whose names she couldn’t remember. They were all grinning at her.

Tom Paoletti and Commander Koehl didn’t get down on the floor, but they did come over to shake her hand.

“Excellent job,” Tom said. “I have to admit, you exceeded my expectations by about a thousand percent.”

Lindsey narrowed her eyes at him. “So what are you saying, boss? You didn’t believe me? You thought I was maybe exaggerating?”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “It’s one thing to have E&E experience. It’s another thing entirely to evade personnel who have the kind of training and skill our people have. Larry Decker tried to track you, Linds—he found no trail. None. At all.”

“I should hope not,” Lindsey said. She lifted her glass. “To Grandpa Henry, who taught me everything I know. Well, almost everything.”

There was much laughter at that, but then everyone in the room lifted their glasses—at least those who’d managed to get their drink orders filled. “To Grandpa Henry!”

Jenkins was standing to Tom’s left smiling his ass off at her, with Izzy behind him. This was what it must’ve felt like to be Tracy Shapiro. Always surrounded by attractive, attentive men, at least one of whom found her…What was that quaint expression?
Bangable.

“I want you to do a debrief with my men,” Commander Koehl told her. It was amazing how different his delivery was from Tom’s. Tom made orders sound like requests. Koehl made requests sound like orders.

Straightlaced, Jenk had called him. Stuffy. Formal. Old-fashioned. But
day
-am, Skippy. His jawline was a work of art.

“I’m sure we can arrange that, sir,” Lindsey told Koehl.

“With all due respect, sir, I can’t believe you were in on this,” Jenk accused the commander.

“It was Paoletti’s idea,” Koehl admitted with a far-too-fleeting smile. “Create a lose/lose scenario. Make it a total Charlie Foxtrot. Get Admiral Tucker’s grudge match out of the way, so we can get down to some real training.”

Apparently, this was a night of surprises for Jenk. “We’re doing additional training with Tommy’s Troubleshooters?” he asked his commanding officer.

“Isn’t it obvious we need it?” Koehl’s cell phone was ringing, and he glanced at it. “Excuse me. Ma’am.” He nodded at Lindsey as he escaped to find a quiet corner to take his call.

“We haven’t discussed a timetable yet,” Tom said, “but as much as we’d like for it to happen ASAP, it’s probably not going to happen until early next year.” He, too, backed away. “I’m proud you’re on my team,” he told Lindsey.

“Thank you, sir,” she said.

Tom grabbed Izzy by the arm, pulling the SEAL with him. “Got a minute, Zanella?”

Her boss was as subtle as a two-by-four to the face. It was embarrassingly obvious that he knew that Lindsey wanted some one-on-one time with Jenk—not easy in a crowded bar where she’d been crowned Queen for a Day.

Still, Jenk didn’t seem to notice. Or if he did, it didn’t frighten him. He put his bottle of beer down and slipped onto the barstool next to her. “So, wow.”

“Yeah,” Lindsey said. “Tom’s pretty smart, isn’t he? This was all his idea.”

“The hostage vanishes, and no one wins.” Jenkins laughed. It was funny, he looked far less tired now that the exercise was over, despite the hours spent running and hiding. She knew from experience that hiding took up an enormous amount of energy. She, herself, was going to sleep very well tonight. “It’s brilliant.”

“When Tom spoke to me about it,” Lindsey admitted, “he was very concerned for your morale—you know, of Team Sixteen’s. I think he was afraid if you won, some of you would have a mixed reaction to having beaten him, since he’s your former commander. He’s very aware that many of the guys in Sixteen are still extremely loyal to him. And he’s equally aware that the jury’s still out on Koehl.”

“Yeah.” Jenk took a sip of his beer, and the movement of his arm made his T-shirt tighten across his chest. He had a streak of dirt on his sleeve and his arm. In fact, he looked as if a cloud of dust would shake free from his clothes if he stood in front of a fan. “Koehl’s not…He’s respected. He’s a solid leader, no one disputes that. It’s just…”

“He’s not Tom,” Lindsey finished for him, and he smiled as he met her eyes.

Lindsey’s heart flipped. God help her.

“Yeah, he’s very much not Tommy,” he admitted, gazing down at his beer, angling the bottle slightly so he could see the label. Was he as freaked out by the spark from that brief eye contact as she was? Probably not, because he looked back at her almost right away. “He’s a different kind of leader. He’s old-school. More regular Navy. All
yes sir
and
aye, aye sir
all the time. Tommy, on the other hand, was a cookout CO. You know, always inviting the team—officers and enlisted—over to his house for burgers and beer.”

Lindsey had to laugh as she polished off the last of her wine. “He does love a good party.” She risked another glance back at Jenk. He was watching her, so she pretended to be fascinated by the dregs in the bottom of her glass.

“I miss him.” Jenk sighed. “We all do. Still, it could be worse.”

He began making patterns on the bar with the condensation from his bottle, which meant that Lindsey could look at him without risk of meltdown.

“Think about how hard it must be for Lew Koehl,” she pointed out. “Trying to fill Tom’s shoes? And can you imagine how awful it would have been for Lew if he lost this exercise—if Tom’s new team had beaten him? Nightmare.”

Jenk rolled his eyes. “And way to trigger discord among the men. Team Sixteen doesn’t need that—it’s been a hard enough year.”

“So Tom sets it up so that everyone loses in glorious unison. SEAL Team Sixteen and TS Inc are in the exact same boat—no one’s officially better than anyone else.”

“Except for you,” Jenk pointed out, as the bartender set a fresh glass of wine in front of her.

“That,” Lindsey said, “is a given. I won our bet, by the way.”

“No, you didn’t,” he said. “TS Inc didn’t win.”

She could handle eye contact when self-righteousness was involved. “No, but the bet wasn’t about whether we won, it was about whether Team Sixteen lost.”

“Oh, shit,” he said, as realization dawned. But then he added, “But we’re going to be doing more training together.”

“Yeah, I heard Tom say that. Maybe in January.” Lindsey rested her chin in her hand, elbow on the bar. “What are you suggesting? Double or nothing? If I win again, you quit the Navy and become our new receptionist?”

Jenk laughed. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

“Still, if I have to wait until January for the next exercise…”

“What do I get?” he asked. “If I win?”

And okay. The eye contact was no longer self-righteous. It was definitely getting warm in there.

“Tracy gets to stay forever,” Lindsey said, before she realized that using the T-word was probably a mood-killer. And indeed. The sizzle, whether real or imagined, was instantly DOA. But as long as she’d brought up the topic…“Although there’s a good chance she won’t want to.” She braced herself for his disappointment. “Her ex is in town tonight. He came in early.”

“Yeah, I heard.” Jenk laughed his disbelief. “So you knew about this, too, huh? What, was I the last to know?”

“I spent the past week with her,” Lindsey pointed out.

“You could have told me before the exercise,” he countered.

“Yeah,” she said. “I could’ve. But I didn’t. Shoot me. Talking to you about Tracy is not on my list of fun things to do.”

Well, that shut him up.

Desperate to change the subject, Lindsey caught the bartender’s eye in the mirror. “Aren’t you supposed to see if I have enough money in my wallet before you give me more wine?” She turned back to Jenk. “I’ve also been here for a while. If I’m going to drive home…”

“I’ll drive you home,” he said.

And there it was again. That glint of something extra in Jenk’s eyes. This time it definitely wasn’t a reflection of the setting sun.

It probably meant that Lindsey was Jenk’s Plan B. She tried to get indignant or even upset about that, but she just couldn’t.

“Thank you,” she said instead. “I might take you up on that.” Like she would actually turn him down.

“The wine’s from the commander,” the bartender told her on his way past, with a toss of his head toward the SEAL CO, who was at the end of the bar.

Well, goodness gracious. “Lew Koehl bought me a drink,” Lindsey mused.

“He’s buying a round for everyone.”

“Thanks a million for completely killing that little fantasy. You know, he might be old-school and old-fashioned, but he’s so…what’s the word I’m looking for here…? Hmm…Oh, I know. Totally
bangable.
”

Jenk knew he was in trouble. Lindsey could see his confusion as he tried to make sense of what she was saying. As she watched, he recognized first that bangable was an Izzy-word. He tried to access memories of a conversation with both Lindsey and Izzy—and failed.

Lindsey took a sip of her wine. Ooh, lovely. It was far more expensive than her first few glasses. “You know,
Marky-Mark,
on the Lindsey Fontaine Wham-Bang Scoreboard, Lew Koehl rates a solid eleven.”

“Oh, fuck,” Jenkins said, then quickly apologized. “God, I’m sorry.”

“For your language?” she asked. “Or for your hideous taste in friends?”

“Both?” he asked. The expression on his face quickly morphed into wonder. “You were actually out there, close enough to overhear us?”

“Baby-cakes, I was close enough to brush the dust from your clothes,” Lindsey told him as she did just that. It was one thing to admire his muscles from afar, another entirely to touch him. His skin was warm, his arm solid. And yes, there were worse things in life than being the Plan B for someone like Mark Jenkins.

There’d be no rude surprises. Just a week, maybe two, of laughter and sex as he rebounded from his disappointment with Tracy. After a while, he’d lose interest. And he’d either just drift away or…No, Jenk wouldn’t drift. He’d sit down with her. He’d hold her hand and gently explain that the timing just wasn’t right, that he had to focus on his career or his car or his microbrewery or his new girlfriend, although he probably wouldn’t mention that last one.

But it would be okay because she knew it was coming. Even now, before it started.

“That’s…really amazing,” he said.

“You weren’t looking for me,” Lindsey said, taking her hand back, even though she knew he wanted her to keep it there. He did, after all, find her bangable, and Tracy had left the playing field. “No one was looking for me, out there all by myself. That was the biggest failure of the op, in my opinion. Both sides assumed that I’d be part of a group—either a prisoner of the terrorists, or being rescued by the SEALs. One person, particularly one my size, is a whole lot harder to find and track.”

“I did finally figure it out,” he told her, and oh, there was double meaning in that, since he moved his boot over to the footrest on her stool, which made his knee touch her leg. Just lightly. Just enough.

“Yeah, but by then I was long gone.” As far as hidden messages went, that was a complete lie, since she was sitting right here. Still, it was probably good to let him wonder.

“Hey, gorgeous.” Izzy slid onto the stool next to Jenk, leaning around him to smile at Lindsey.

“I am sorry,” Jenk said to Lindsey. “About…you know.”

“Your degrading objectification of the women that you work with?” Lindsey shrugged. “It could be worse. I could’ve rated lower than Julie Andrews.”

“Uh-oh,” Izzy said.

“Maybe,” Lindsey said to Jenk, amazed at her daring even as the words were coming out of her mouth, as she reached out once again, this time to brush some dirt from the front of his shirt, “if I give it some thought, I’ll come up with a way you can make it up to me.”

Izzy knew it was probably best to remain absolutely silent as Lindsey slid down off her barstool.

He was intending to wait until she was nearly all the way across the room, way out of earshot and over by the door to the women’s head, before he turned to Jenkins and said,
Dude, you are
so
getting laid tonight.

And Jenkins wouldn’t disagree. He wouldn’t deny it. He wouldn’t even try to pretend that he wasn’t thinking the exact same thought. How could he possibly? Lindsey couldn’t have been any more clear if she’d taken a bullhorn and shouted directly into Mark’s ear.

After they high-fived, then Izzy would say,
Does this mean I can have Tracy?

Okay, wait. That was probably not the best way to put it. And yeah, sure, the going consensus was that Tracy was going to be packing her desk and heading back East, which was a bummer for Marky-Mark since he’d wanted a fifty-year relationship. Izzy, however, only wanted forty minutes in a broom closet, and he hadn’t yet given up hope of a tryst with Miss Born-to-be-Bad.

But Jenk turned to Izzy first. “I think she’s had too much to drink.”

Oh no. No, no. “M., she’s fine.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so.”

“What, Lindsey has to be shit-faced to hit on you?” Izzy couldn’t believe this. “Jenkins, read my lips. She’s a sure thing. Celebrate this. Don’t turn it into a problem.”

“She’s definitely feeling the alcohol.”

“Yeah,” Izzy said. “That’s why people drink. To feel the alcohol. To facilitate getting laid.”

Jenkins was shaking his head. But he was also sneaking looks over to where Lindsey had stopped to talk to a table filled with SEAL officers, past and present. “What about Tracy?”

“What about Tracy?” Izzy countered.