I walked behind the room divider. McG was usually the cool-headed man on the team. The jokester. But I hadn’t seen a trace of that man. The Aden mission changed us. I recovered a part of myself that had been lost, but for Kelly’s brother, he’d transformed into someone else.
Callum’s back was turned to me as I walked in. He had flipped the cot against the wall and the box that served as a nightstand had been flipped along with it. The LED lamp that must have been on the box lay shattered on the floor.
“McG,” I said. “You okay?”
He didn’t turn to me immediately, taking ragged breaths. His shirt stretched taut over his back, shoulders, and biceps. My eyes sought our shared tattoo. The Spartan helmet was partially visible under the sleeve and even if I couldn’t read the words at that distance, I knew what they were.
Finally, he turned to me. He’d ripped off part of Kelly’s prosthetics from his face.
“She’s not going to be happy you fucked up her work.”
“You think I give a shit right now?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I get you’re worried about Alana, but what we’re doing here, including the shit you just tore off is what we need to get her back.”
He gave a shake of his head, a wry apologetic grin twisting his mouth. “You’re right.”
“So, I repeat, are you okay?”
He glanced at me. “I’m sorry.”
I inhaled sharply. Those words struck deeper. We never got a chance to talk about the Aden mission. My shoulders slumped. “I was supposed to have your back.”
“I know, brother,” McG said.
Our team changed formations at the last minute.
“Taking the nukes off that ship was too easy. Nothing made sense.” I stepped toward him. Emotions burned behind my eyes and rattled inside my chest cavity. “I saw you at the bow.” The words barely scraped past my throat. Right before the world exploded.
Then, grabbing his nape, I inched his face close and gritted out, “I would’ve had your back.”
“I know,” Callum rasped. “And I’m fucking sorry I put you, Kelly, and my entire family through hell.”
My mouth flattened, and my jaw clenched hard. I squeezed my eyes shut.
The moments when I thought Callum got incinerated in a ball of fire were forever seared in my memory. I’d buried them deep. The survival of my marriage depended on it. I allowed myself to call upon it now and braced for it.
Comms were chaos.
“Going after tangos!” McG shouted.
“Let them go,” I ordered. But something compelled my feet to head in his direction. I turned to the rest of my team with the cache of nukes. “Get it off this ship.”
I ran down the port side to Callum’s location. We didn’t have the arms traffickers. I got why he wanted to nail these motherfuckers down and end this dangerous alliance with Al Qaeda.
I saw him at the bow, looking into the depths of the ocean. Did the guys jump ship?
“I got you, brother,” I said behind him.
He turned.
I opened my eyes to ones reflecting the same fierceness I felt. Fierceness that communicated what a thousand words couldn’t. If he were drowning, I would’ve jumped into that ocean and given him my last breath. If he were too wounded to move, I’d have carried him off that ship and dragged him to our waiting speedboat.
He would’ve done the same for me.
This was our brotherhood.
I tightened my grip around his neck and acknowledged our unspoken words and our current predicament. “We’ll get Alana back.”
Kelly
“How much do we trust your man inside?” Levi asked Stepanov. When he and Callum emerged from behind the divider, a look of fierce calm had settled on their faces—men on a mission.
“I think ‘man inside’ might be stretching it,” the Russian said. “Mutual acquaintance between Ford and me is more apropos. As far as they’re concerned, I found a middleman who negotiated a price in exchange for the product. But as a penalty for losing it, they want it back with interest.”
“Like I said,” Levi stated. “Bad idea. How do they know that you’re not going to double-cross them? Which is exactly what you’re going to do. And how do we know you’re not leading us into a trap?”
“That’s a risk McGrath was willing to take to get close to his sister.”
“I smell a setup.”
“We don’t have time or reason to delay,” Callum interjected. The rest of the guys gathered around. “Alana’s outta time. We should’ve been there yesterday.”
“And it’s not possible to raid it now without the disguises?” I asked.
“No,” Stepanov said. “I’m your ticket inside. You’ll never infiltrate the compound without me. If you try to force your way in, the driveway is so long, their armed guards would be waiting for you and in position before you even reach the main house. The building that contains Alana is even further back.”
“Can’t we get around it?” I pressed. It wasn’t my expertise, but I knew my husband was well versed in covert extraction. Sending them to the wolves with their weapons not easily within reach set my nerves on edge.
Bristow and Stepanov shook their heads at the same time, but it was the SEAL who answered, “It’ll be challenging and risky since the property backs up against Mount Charleston’s highest peak. And from what we’re gathering, the perimeter is an old-fashioned steel trap. Security can’t be hacked.”
“How about your friends whose faces we’re using for these masks?” I asked. “Are they onboard with the plan? Do they know Ford too? Won’t that be a problem?”
“Good question,” Stepanov said, smiling at me and then at Levi. “But they won’t be an issue.”
Levi crossed his arms. “Care to enlighten us?”
Stepanov shrugged. “For one thing, two of them are buried under the desert on Route 15.”
“Christ,” Kelso said. “Should I be hearing this? You do remember I’m a cop, right?”
The poor detective was getting more corrupt by the second.
Bristow smirked. “Out of curiosity, what happened to the third guy?”
“He’s in my basement. He won’t be a problem either.”
“Interesting. You left him alive.” Bristow seemed fascinated by the Russian.
“Of course. He’s my friend. I like him.”
Bristow barked a laugh. “Sucks to be your friend.”
Stepanov merely smiled in a way that reminded me of a hyena.
Levi was glaring at Stepanov. “As the leader of a secret society, you sure have a big mouth.”
“Your confidence in this plan is important to me. Granted there are flaws, but if we pull this off, it would solve all our problems, don’t you think?” He stared at the lone law enforcement official in the warehouse. “And since he’s here, involved in our plans, I’m confident his badge is a little tarnished.”
“Helping a friend,” Kelso grumbled and muttered about not keeping them in basements.
I reached out to touch the detective’s hand. “Thank you for this.”
“You guys have become family,” Kelso said gruffly. “And it seems I’d do anything for family.”
Tom joined the conversation. “I hate to intrude, but don’t you think we need to do a supply run now? I’m foreseeing a long forty-eight hours, and we need to get started.”
“Yes.” It was seven. Even if the mask emporium was open twenty-four hours, I wanted to begin at dawn. I knew how to pace myself and I could function better with a full night’s sleep. I started a list on my new phone. “It’d be faster if I do the shopping for the special effects things than hand this over to one of you.”
“I’m not letting you out of my sight,” Levi said.
“And you’re not,” I retorted. “You can be my cart man as usual. We get started on casting tomorrow morning at five.”
I looked at Tom, Callum, and Bristow. “You guys up for it?”
All three men nodded.
It felt like the biggest job of my SFX career.
