Operation Willow Quest
OPERATION WILLOW
QUEST
by
Karlene
Blakemore-
Mowle
WHISKEY CREEK PRESS
www.whiskeycreekpress.com
Published by
WHISKEY CREEK PRESS
Whiskey Creek Press
51052
Casper
, WY 82605-1052
Copyright
Ó
2012 by
Karlene
Blakemore-
Mowle
Warning: The
unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.
Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain,
is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 (five) years in federal
prison and a fine of $250,000.
Names, characters and
incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are
used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the
author or the publisher.
No part of this book
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN 978-1-61160-224-1
Credits
Cover Artist: Gemini Judson
Editor: Dave Field
Printed in the United States of America
D
edication
To my Family
Chapter 1
The four men sat, ram-rod straight in their
seats, staring at the General across the table.
“They’re sure this Intel’s reliable, sir?” Tate
Maddox asked, his face a mask of stone.
“They’re sure enough to be taking it
seriously,” the General said with a confident nod. “They can’t be sure yet
where the order for a hit on you men has come from, but the informant’s adamant
it was taken out on the four marines involved in the
Trèago
trial. The powers that be thought you should be informed, and I agree, but I
don’t want you to concern yourselves with these men—the proper channels have
been contacted. They have a team of detectives working around the clock on
this. We
will
catch this guy.”
Dismissed from the General’s office, the four Marines
strode out of the building, tension radiating from every pore in their bodies.
No one spoke. Instead, they headed back to the gym to resume their workout.
“Son of a bitch,” Tate raged, thumping the
boxing bag with a ferocity that sent a jarring shudder through Peter Delaware
as he held it securely.
“Come on, Ox, some hired thug off the street is
going to take us out? No way.”
“Tupper, do you honestly believe with
everything we know about
Trèago
he’d hire someone
sloppy enough to get caught?” Tate snarled between landing punches on the bag.
“That guy has more lives than a damn cat,”
Chase Maloney commented, strumming the speedball with a steady left hook-right
hook rhythm. “I thought we’d managed to outrun him once he was in prison.”
“So what are we going to do?” Tupper asked,
bending down to snag up his towel as he wiped the sweat from his face.
“I don’t know…yet, but one thing for sure…I’m
not going to sit back and let him pick us off one by one—I’ve got a wife and
child to worry about now.”
Del
gave a small grunt
with each punch of Tate’s fist to the bag.
Tate dragged his forearm across his face,
wiping the sweat from his eyes, breathing heavily. “There’s no way I’m letting
him close enough to hurt my family again—I’ll kill him myself if he tries,” he
vowed with a look in his eye as cold as any glacier.
A silent surge of agreement passed between the
unit of men as they continued to pound out their frustrations on the hapless
equipment around them—each lost in their own thoughts of the man who’d come so
close to ending their lives in the past, and who seemed hell-bent on eliminating
them now.
Chapter 2
The scream echoed off the walls.
Her heart pounded in her chest. Her
sweat-dampened clothing stuck to her uncomfortably. Willow swung her legs from the tangled mess
of her sheets, to sit on the edge of her bed as her sister, Summer, came to the
door moments later, whispering her name uncertainly.
“Sorry—I hoped, I didn’t wake you,” Willow
said, her voice dull in the dark room.
“I think you almost woke the dead,” Summer whispered
with a hand clenched against her chest. “Are you all right?”
“Just a stupid dream,” she muttered, and sighed
as her sister came further into the room.
Willow
rubbed her hands up
and down her face as though to erase the dream forcefully.
The bed dipped as her sister sat down beside
her awkwardly, adjusting her ungainly weight, one hand resting protectively
over the baby inside her swollen belly. “Maybe you should go and talk to
someone again. How long since you last had a peaceful night’s sleep?”
“I saw someone, it didn’t help. I can handle
it.”
“I don’t think you can.”
Willow
stared at her with a
scowl. “I can handle it,” she insisted. A shudder ran through her as she fought
to shake off the lingering effects of her nightmare.
“Don’t just shrug this off, Willow. I saw the condition you were in when
Trèago
had finished with you. I can see how you are now—you
need to talk about it.”
“And who do you suggest I talk to about it?
Other than you, who else knows what we went through? The shrinks don’t
understand—they don’t know what those animals did, how I was forced to live.
How do
you
sleep at night?” Willow demanded roughly. The memory of two
years ago, when she’d been taken hostage in Cambodia, and Summer had come in
search of her, only to also be captured, was just as painful to think about now
as it had been back then.
Summer
levelled
a
look at her. “I got help. There are people trained to talk to hostage
victims—they understand. You just need to find the right person. You can’t keep
going on like this.”
Willow
stared at her for a
moment before she shook her head wearily. Maybe Summer felt comfortable talking
to some stranger about her time spent in that Cambodian prison, but it wasn’t
for her—Willow
had learned to depend on herself, to suck it up and get on with it. She didn’t
have time to sit and cry on some overpaid psychiatrist’s lounge chair. “I’ll be
all right Sum, it’s just going to take some more time.”
Summer’s smile seemed to tremble on her lips as
she got to her feet and looked back at her sister from the doorway. “I worry
about you Will; you’re all the family I have left. I just want you to be
happy,” she said softly, then shut the door behind her as she went back to her
own bed.
Willow closed her eyes, not surprised to find
the images continued to float about inside her head—no longer a nightmare, now
just an uneasy memory that wouldn’t be put to rest.
* * * *
When Willow
walked from her bedroom the next morning, she found Summer fluttering around as
though preparing for an army of dust inspectors to enter the house at any
moment. “What are you doing?”
“Just trying to tidy up a bit,” she said,
dragging the vacuum along behind her like a naughty puppy.
“You shouldn’t be doing this in your condition.
Sit down and let me finish up,” Willow
said, as she walked towards her sister—but Summer dodged her hand,
out-stretched for the vacuum cleaner, and shooed her away. “I’m almost finished.”
Willow rolled her eyes as she watched her
sister race through her cleaning like a mini tornado, but knew it was no point
arguing—“stubborn” ran through both their veins like some genetic disease. Leaving
the hormonal, pregnant woman to her own devices, Willow decided to make a start on breakfast
instead. Gathering a tray of their breakfast things, she took her cargo out
onto the veranda and set the table.
Summer came out a few moments later and rearranged
the cutlery.
From across the table Willow gave a slight lift of her eyebrow and
sipped at her juice. “What’s gotten into you this morning?”
Summer looked up with a shake of her
softly-curled mane. “I don’t know. I just have a terrible need to clean…
God
,
I hope this isn’t fatal,” she said, as she slumped back in her chair.
“I just hope it’s not
contagious
,” Willow muttered as she
replaced the tall juice glass, watching the beads of condensation run down the
sides, back on the table.
“Well, it’s all right to say that when you’ve
got a maid—some of us have to lower our standards to do the mundane things like
cleaning,” Summer scoffed.
“I don’t have a
maid,”
Willow
corrected. “I have a cleaning service, and I can think of a million things I’d
rather waste my time doing, other than cleaning.”
“You need a man,” her sister told her firmly as
she reached for the orange juice.
“Like I need a hole in my head.”
“You need roots and a home,” Summer persisted,
undeterred by the lethal looks her sister shot her across the table.
“I have a home, and I happen to
like
being rootless—so to speak,” she added.
“You have an apartment you barely use, and a
huge bank account you rarely take time to enjoy.”
Willow
groaned, saying, “It’s
too early in the morning for this conversation.”
“One day it’ll be too late,” Summer muttered.
Ignoring her sister’s dire warning, Willow filled her coffee
cup.
Need a man indeed
, she thought
sarcastically,
as if they just walk in
off the street at a drop of the hat
.
The glass door slid open behind them, causing Willow to almost choke on
her coffee.
Summer turned to look over her shoulder,
following her sister’s surprised stare, giving a scream of delight as the tall,
grinning figure of her husband came through the open doorway. Within moments he
had her wrapped in a secure hug, holding her gently.