Into the Storm (33 page)

Although knowing Tommy Paoletti, this was probably just another one of his mind games. Provide the rescue squad with intel on the five tangos who’d kidnapped a hostage, and then make sure the tangos self-reduced their ranks, providing confusion and an opportunity for the good guys to kill said hostage by accident.

“I’m putting down my weapon,” Dave said, again narrating his action, “so I can reach into my bag and show you—”

Someone’s cell phone rang.

It was Decker’s. It was joined by someone else’s—probably Dave’s. And then, simultaneously, Izzy’s, Lopez’s, and Gillman’s radios chirped.

And just like that, the game was over. No doubt about it, SEAL Team Sixteen was going wheels up.

Lights went on. Training equipment was piled on the floor. SEALs who had, moments before, been sneaking up on the cabin now Avon-ladied right up to the front door.

There was no word on where Team Sixteen was going. If they were going to be briefed, it would happen on the plane. Still, from the furrow that Izzy had seen in Commander Koehl’s forehead this morning, it seemed likely Team Sixteen was heading to either A-stan or Iraq.

Izzy turned to Tracy, to say—what?
I just wanted you to know that if something happens to me over there, I will die with a smile on my face, thanks to you.
Nah, probably not the way to go. Besides, he was bulletproof. Death was not an option. He should probably just say,
I really
am
sorry, and I hope your life works out just the way you want it to.
And then ride off into the sunset.

So to speak, considering the sun had set hours ago.

But none of it mattered, because Tracy was gone, her chair empty.

Izzy went outside to wave to her from afar, to let her know that it was safe to go back in and sit next to the fire, where she wouldn’t have to worry about running into him again for a good long time.

Everyone who didn’t have to rush down to the airport in Manchester—as in Tommy’s team—was gathering in the cabin.

The plan was to get the SEALs on the road as quickly as possible. They didn’t even have to pick up their stuff from the motel—they’d planned for that in advance, loading all their duffels and gear into one of the trucks.

Nevertheless, Jenk risked the senior chief’s wrath by looking for Lindsey after he’d put both his training weapon and his jacket onto the piles on the cabin floor.

She was standing by the fireplace, talking to Dave.

“Excuse me,” Jenk said. “May I have a moment with Lindsey?”

She didn’t give Dave a chance to depart. “You hate me.” She just jumped right into the conversation that would have happened earlier, had Jenk not had to run away. “Why would you ask me to come home with you for Christmas when you hate me?”

Dave gave him an
oh really?
look as he drifted out of earshot.

“I don’t hate you,” Jenk said. “I’m upset with you. I’m angry. I’m very angry, yeah, but I don’t hate you.”

“So you figure, what, you’ll bring me home for Festivus?” she asked.

Jenk shook his head. “I don’t know what that is.”

“Of course you don’t,” she said. “You don’t watch much TV.” Like that was a bad thing.

“I just don’t want you to be alone for Christmas,” he told her.

Lindsey just looked at him. Silent. Unsmiling. He had no idea what she was thinking, what she was feeling. He took it as a good sign that she didn’t
whatever
him or try to make a joke.

“It’s not meant as some kind of trick,” he felt compelled to explain. “Like, I’m still secretly in love with you or something, so I invite you home to meet my folks, with hopes of brainwashing you into…” Jenk rolled his eyes. “I just figured that by Christmas the anger I’m feeling will be down to a dull mad, and I’ll be able to handle the idea of being your friend again. I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday, and bottom line, I don’t want to lose you, either.”

“I hate that you’re so nice,” she finally said. “Can’t you be more…awful?”

“What, just never talk to you again? I considered it, but…I like you. I think you’re really messed up, but I still like you.”

“You like me just the way I am, huh?” she said. “That’s from
Bridget Jones’s Diary.
”

“Yeah, I know,” Jenk said. “I actually saw that one. And no. I
don’t
like you just the way you are. I think you need, I don’t know, a mental tune-up, or a reality check or
some
thing. I know you didn’t purposely set out to hurt me, but I wish you would open your eyes and see how you’re sabotaging yourself. But what can I do?”

“Jenkins!” The shout came from outside.

“Shit,” he said. “I gotta go.” He held out his hand, because friends shook when they said good-bye.

Lindsey took his hand, her fingers cold. “Mark, I—”

“Jenkins. Have you seen Tracy?” Izzy nearly barreled into them—perfectly terrible timing, because Lindsey was clearly about to say something heartfelt for a change and maybe even accept his Christmas invitation.

“No,” Jenk said as, crap, she pulled her hand away.

“Linds?” Izzy asked.

“I haven’t seen her either. Sorry.”

“Okay,” Izzy said, “this is starting to freak me out. She’s gone. She’s not in here, she’s not in the yard, she’s not by the trucks. Unless she’s hiding from me, because, she’s, like, embarrassed about last night—” He looked at Jenk. “You know, about ralphing on me? Dude, do me a favor and just take a quick look around.”

Jenk had one, maybe two minutes left to let Lindsey tell him whatever it was that she was going to tell him, but instead he was going to go chasing after Tracy? The irony of that was not lost on him.

“She’s got her cell phone with her,” Lindsey pointed out. “I’ll just call her.” She opened her own phone. “What’s her number?” She looked at Jenk.

He, of course, knew Tracy’s number by heart—another strike against him. He rattled it off, and she dialed, holding the phone to her ear.

“Come on, pick it up,” Izzy muttered.

Lindsey shook her head. “I’m going right to voice mail. Tracy, this is Lindsey. I’m betting your phone is set on silent. When you get this message, call me. Right away.” She hung up.

“Shit,” Izzy said.

But then, over on the other side of the room, a phone let out a voice mail beep.

Okay, that probably wasn’t a good thing.

Izzy loped over, kicking aside Dave’s knapsack and some other equipment. He bent down and held it up—the phone he’d found was bright pink. And if there was still any doubt that it was Tracy’s, he opened it, hit a few buttons, and Lindsey’s phone rang.

“I hit redial,” he said into it, as she answered. “I guess she doesn’t have her phone with her.”

“I guess not,” Lindsey agreed, hanging up. “But that’s gotta mean she can’t be too far.” She looked at Jenk, as over in the corner Izzy flagged down Dave Malkoff. “Why don’t you go check by the trucks. And take Izzy, because if she is avoiding him, then she’ll surely come back in here once he leaves. For obvious reasons.” She gestured toward the fire.

Jenk hesitated, and she misunderstood. “Before you go getting all jealous,” she continued, “I really doubt she’s hiding from Izzy for any reason other than the puking incident. I was with her all night, and although she railed against men in general and Lyle in particular, she didn’t mention Izzy once.”

“I’m not jealous,” he said.

“What are you, crazy?” Izzy exclaimed from across the room. “Damnit, Dave!”

“Lindsey,” Dave called, stepping over the pile of jackets, “you were in Commander Koehl’s team, right?”

She nodded. “Yeah?”

“Damnit!” Izzy followed Dave across the room, clearly irked.

“So you connected with Tracy in the woods behind the cabin.” Dave said. “Right?”

Uh-oh. Jenk looked at Lindsey. This wasn’t going to be good.

Lindsey met his eyes, then looked from Izzy to Dave. “That was one of the potential plans, yeah, but…No, we never even got into position.”

“Shit!” Izzy said. “Fucking
shit
!”

“When those shots were fired,” Lindsey continued, “we hunkered down, intending to investigate, but before we could, we got the game over notice. At which point we immediately moved back toward Jacquette’s squad. They were at the front of the cabin.”

“
What
was one of the potential plans?” Jenk asked her. For Tracy to go into the woods…?

“Dave here was working for the good guys,” Izzy told him. “He told Tracy to leave by the back door while he created a diversion.”

“So Tracy went out the back door.” Jenk repeated. Fucking shit, indeed. “But no one was there to collect her.”

“She must’ve left right before we got the call,” Dave said. “Or maybe even during it? I was reaching for my phone, I didn’t see her.”

Lindsey crossed to the door in question. “This is the door she was supposed to use?” she asked, even as she opened it and scanned the ground outside.

“Guys, we’ve got to go.” Gillman appeared, like the angel of doom.

“There’s a clear trail,” Lindsey announced. “Leading due north, back toward the state road.”

“It’s cold out there,” Dave said, ever the voice of reason. “How far is she going to go before she realizes something’s wrong and turns around?”

“Yeah, but this girl’s not a camper,” Izzy said.

“Even someone experienced could turn around, shift to the right or left a few degrees and miss the cabin by a mile,” Jenk pointed out. He couldn’t believe this. “How did this happen? After the lessons we all allegedly learned from Lindsey?”

“Guys,” Gilligan said. He tapped his watch.

Izzy lit into him. “Do you not understand that Tracy is missing?” He quickly shifted gears. “Yo, you were in the cabin with us. Did
you
see her leave?”

“I didn’t,” Gillman admitted. “But weren’t you standing right next to her?”

“I was in front of her,” Izzy said. “I was focused on Crazy-Ass Dave.”

“Nice to know I’m so well respected.” Dave sniffed.

Lindsey knocked on the door to get their attention. “Dave, please go and find Tom. And Decker, too. And all the flashlights you can round up.” She looked at Izzy and Jenk. “Go. We’ll find her. I promise. I’ll call you when we do. It’ll probably be before you even hit the airfield.”

“I’m going to make sure Koehl knows about this.” Izzy bounded off.

“Come on,” Gillman said.

But still Jenk hesitated.

Lindsey lifted her right hand. “I swear, I won’t go to sleep tonight until I’m sure Tracy is safe and secure. Go save the world.”

Jenk nodded. “Call me.”

“Better yet, I’ll have Tracy call you herself,” Lindsey told him, then turned to meet Tom, who was coming into the cabin. “Sir, we’ve got a little problem.”

“I don’t know Tracy that well,” Gillman said, as he and Jenk headed at a jog back toward the waiting trucks. “But seriously, how far could she have gone?”

Tracy finally reached the road.

There was no one there to meet her, and the little bit of scared she’d been harboring ever since she’d left the cabin turned into a serious dose of frightened.

She tried to bolster her sagging spirits by remembering Izzy’s insulting words.
She’s completely unskilled.
Sure, he’d meant it in terms of counterterrorism, but it was also very clearly a personal dig, obviously referring to last night’s total fiasco.

God, she was still so embarrassed. Mortified. Yeah, she’d had a lot of tequila, but how could she have been so totally stupid and naive as to believe all those things Izzy’d said?

She’d believed him because she’d wanted to. Because she’d never had sex before with someone she didn’t love. Because she’d been temporarily blinded by the hormones rushing through her system.

Then reality had reared its ugly head. And it wasn’t just her own stupidity that stared back at her. She realized this morning that she was willing to marry Lyle simply so she wouldn’t have to be alone anymore. She’d thought it was his money she wanted—the financial security. But apparently it wasn’t—since she’d been so instantly willing to give that up for some sailor who’d said words she’d wanted to hear.

He’d said words she was starving to hear.

God, Izzy must think she was an idiot.

And yet, she’d managed to walk right out of that cabin, right out from under his enormously unattractive nose. He was probably being taken to task for it right this very moment.

Which was nice to consider, but not as nice as sitting in front of a fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate would’ve been.

It was unbelievably cold, and Tracy wrapped the jacket more tightly around her, covering her ears with her mittened hands. She had no idea which way to walk, since the road was deserted and there were no lights in either direction and…

Wait, what was that?

Tracy squinted and…

Yes, hello, those
were
headlights coming toward her. She most definitely was on the verge of being saved.

She’d get back to the motel, hours ahead of them all. They’d rush in, terrified that she was still out on the mountain, frozen to death, and she’d be all like, “Oh, you thought I was unskilled? Really? You must be so cold, would you like some of the chicken soup that I made from scratch while I was waiting…?”

She jumped up and down, waving her arms, and sure enough, the car slowed to a stop. It was similar to the other cars she’d seen here in the wilderness of New Hampshire—ancient, but still seeming to run well. Not that she cared, as long as the heater worked.

The window went down to reveal a man, alone behind the wheel. “What are you doing out here,” he said, in that weird twangy accent that marked some people as being from Maine. Not all of them, though. Her college roommate, Mindy, had been from Bangor, and she’d talked like a normal person. But her father sounded as if someone had tried to clone a Kennedy, and the experiment had gone terribly, horribly wrong.
Yuh cahn’t get thah from he-yah
instead of
you can’t get there from here.

“I was out hiking,” Tracy said now, which was not entirely untrue, “and I got separated from my friends. We’re staying at the Motel-A-Rama in Darlington. Are you going anywhere even remotely near there?”