Lt. Roger Starrett was good.
Alyssa Locke sat in the shade of a tent that had been provided for the K-stani officials and other observers, and watched him run his team of SEALs through their drill, entering the mock-up of the hijacked plane again and again.
Negotiator Max Bhagat had been on the radio all night, talking to the terrorists through a young American passenger who was pretending to be Senator Crawford’s daughter Karen. The real Karen Crawford had been picked up and whisked away to safety in Athens late last night.
Despite the fact that there was still no direct audio and video from the plane, a team of FBI psychologists had come to the conclusion that the situation on board flight 232 was stable. Still, the SEALs were drilling as if they could be called in to take down the plane at any moment.
As she watched, the SEALs burst inside of the wooden plane using grenades that delivered both a loud noise and a blinding flash of light.
Their timing was even better this go around.
Yes, Starrett was good. Of course, the entire team he was leading was first-rate. They worked as a unit, practically thinking and breathing as one. But to give Roger Starrett credit, he was a good leader. Direct and self-assured. And capable of letting each of his teammates do what they did best without his interference.
Yeah, Roger was excellent.
It helped if Alyssa thought of him as Roger, rather than by his nickname, Sam. Sam Starrett was the impossibly sexy man with the wide smile, brilliant blue eyes, and lean body who showed up in her dreams and had steamy, pulse-pounding sex with her atop her kitchen table.
As she watched him now, his long, tanned legs were covered by BDUs —Battle Dress Uniform pants—in the traditional olive drab favored by the Army. It was hot out, and he’d taken off his shirt, and his tan-colored T-shirt was stained with sweat, hugging his well-built chest and shoulders. He looked unbearably good.
“Oh, God,” she said.
Sometimes, though, it wasn’t sex. Sometimes he made love to her in her dreams. Slowly. Sweetly. Tenderly. As if he were joining more than their bodies—more, even, than their two hearts.
The kitchen table was part of a drunken memory. Alyssa knew it had happened at least once that way, that night when she’d made such an error in judgment. The other, though, had to be sheer wishful thinking.
“You okay?” Jules asked. Her partner was wearing sunglasses identical to the ones Keanu Reeves had worn in The Matrix. Alyssa kept expecting him to start hanging in the air and moving in slow motion.
They were the only ones sitting there under the tent, so she answered him honestly. “This sucks. Look at him.”
Jules looked. “How does he get away with not cutting his hair? I thought the Navy had all those anal rules about officers and appearances.”
“He’s what’s known as a long-hair,” Alyssa told him. “An operative who can blend in in places where a military haircut would stand out.”
“He’s shaved since last time. Since DC,” Jules realized.
“That means he’s probably been doing a lot of diving. He told me it’s hard for someone with a beard to get an airtight seal around a face mask.” He’d also told her his close friends could always tell what he’d been up to—to some degree—over the past few months by the length of his hair and the presence or absence of his mustache and goatee. Other than that and the fact that he looked as if he’d been working out like a maniac, she had absolutely no clue what he’d been up to.
Had he thought about her at all?
Probably not.
“If it’s any consolation,” Jules told her, “he hates this, too. He’s looked over here only four thousand times this morning. And did you see his face last night when he came into the hotel restaurant and saw you?”
“I’ve handled this badly,” Alyssa admitted to herself. “I should have been friendly.”
“Friendly would’ve put you right back into his bed.”
“Distant and cool,” she countered, “but still friendly.”
“If you want to get with him, then get with him.” Jules believed in being direct and to the point.
“I don’t want to—”
He took off his sunglasses and really looked at her. “Sweetie, I’m not going to judge you.”
“Really.” She took off her sunglasses, too. “I don’t even remotely want to—”
“I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Jules. Hello. I am not going to get hurt. I am not going to ‘get with’ this man. I would never make that kind of mistake again.”
“Okay, good, because he’s coming over here right now—”
Oh, shit. He was. Alyssa hurriedly put her sunglasses back on.
“—with that kind of caveman walk,” Jules continued. “You know, the kind that announces he’s the alpha male around here, so if you don’t want him to grab you by the hair and pull you into his cave, you better run.”
Sam Starrett was at twelve o’clock, heading straight for the observers’ tent, his boots scuffing up a small cloud of dust as he came. He was drinking a bottle of water, and try as she might to focus on the fact that, behind him, the rest of his team was taking a break, Senior Chief Wolchonok making sure everyone had water and PowerBars, her eyes were drawn back to Starrett.
With the sun slightly behind him, with the muscles in his arms and chest actually rippling enticingly as he moved—dammit!—he looked like some kind of action hero, despite the baseball cap on his head. Or maybe because of it, she wasn’t sure.
“Maybe I should disappear,” Jules murmured.
“Don’t you dare.” Alyssa stood up, unwilling to let Sam loom over her more than he had to.
And then he was there. Standing directly in front of her.
There was sex in his eyes as he gazed down at her. A silent reminder that they’d once shared bodily fluids, that he’d taken her places she hadn’t even dreamed possible. A reminder that, try as she might not to be, she was flesh and blood. Human—with human failings.
And human needs.
“You want to make yourselves useful?” Starrett asked in his infuriating Texas drawl, no greeting, no pretense of niceties. “Instead of sitting around wasting taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars?”
“You bet we do,” Jules answered before she could spit out a scathing retort.
Starrett looked at her, one eyebrow slightly raised, and she knew that he expected her to protest. He wanted her to protest.
So she didn’t. “What would you like us to do, Lieutenant?” she asked as nicely as she could manage, trying to sound friendly. Friendly, yet still cool.
“I need more people to play the part of the terrorists,” he said. “I’ve got two SAS guys coming in, but I’m still three bodies short.” He gestured to Jules with his head. “Can he shoot?”
“He is an FBI agent,” Alyssa countered. She took a deep breath before calling him a less than flattering name. Don’t get mad. Stay cool. And friendly. She forced what she hoped was a friendly smile.
“Yeah, well, in my experience, that means shit,” Starrett said.
“Mine, too,” Jules said easily. “But, yeah, he can shoot. Is he as good as Alyssa Locke? No. Because no one, my friend, is as good as Alyssa Locke.”
Starrett looked at her again, and this time there was something different in his eyes. Something that looked an awful lot like ... regret?
But then it was gone and he was walking away.
“In fifteen minutes, check in with the senior chief,” he tossed back over his shoulder. “He’ll get you the gear you need. Don’t bother him before then—he’s taking a nap. Hope you brought a hat—you’re going to need it. It’s fucking hot out here.”
Alyssa pulled her gaze away from Sam Starrett’s perfect rear end.
“This is going to be fun,” Jules said. “Watching you kick ass.”
Fun wasn’t quite the word she would have used.
Stan was asleep.
He’d found a narrow bit of shade behind the wooden mock-up of the plane and had curled up, right on the dusty ground.
Except the sun had moved and now half of his face was subject to its harsh rays.
He slept on his side, one arm under his head, the other hand open and resting on his chest. It was strange to see him so relaxed, without that high voltage current of electricity that seemed to surge through him at all times.
Teri sat down next to him as quietly as she could, letting her shadow cover his face.
God, it was hot. And dry as hell.
She set down the last of the bags she’d brought from the hotel. Taking a sip of lukewarm water from her bottle, she looked down to find Stan’s eyes open and watching her.
“God!” she said, startled. He hadn’t moved at all. He’d just opened his eyes and was instantly alert.
“Where’s your flack jacket?” he asked.
“In the helo.”
“Hell of a lot of good it’ll do you there.”
“It’s hot,” she tried to explain. “And I figured I was safe enough out here, surrounded by a SEAL team.”
He pushed himself up into a sitting position, brushing the dust from his arm and shirt.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she continued.
“It’s all right.” He checked his watch. “I got ten minutes. That’s better than some days.”
Ten minutes? Now she really felt awful. She’d heard through the grapevine that the senior chief hadn’t managed to make it back to his hotel room at all last night. He’d gone from his session with her in the stairwell to a meeting at the airport, to a meeting with Adm. Chip Crowley, who’d arrived in K-stan late last night.
And he’d been back here, with Sam Starrett’s team of SEALs, hard at work at 0400.
The lines of fatigue around his eyes and mouth were more pronounced than they’d been last night.
“I would’ve just left you to sleep,” she told him, “but the sun was right on your face. I was trying to, you know, pretend I was a tree or something.”
He stared at her as if she’d just spoken in Greek. “A tree?” He wasn’t quite glowering, but it was close.
“For shade,” she explained. “You know, from the sun?” Great, she was babbling. “I didn’t want you to get burned.”
Stan touched his peeling nose. “Too late.”
“You should really use sunblock.” What was she doing? She should really just stand up and walk away. He obviously didn’t want to deal with her right now.
“Why bother? With this face?” He pretended to laugh, but he was serious. And a little embarrassed by the topic. He actually thought he was ...
“You have a wonderful face,” she said before she stopped to think. “When you smile ... You should smile more.”
Great, now she’d completely embarrassed him. Or maybe she’d just totally embarrassed herself. Again. It was definitely time to run away. She shifted her weight, intending to push herself up and off the ground.
“My father looks like Marlon Brando,” Stan told her. He didn’t sound at all embarrassed. He sounded like Stan. “You know, before he got fat. Brando, I mean. Not Stan Senior. He’s not fat. He can still run an eight-minute mile.”
Despite being tired, despite wanting her gone, he was talking her down from the ledge again in that easygoing way he had.
“And no, I don’t look anything like him,” Stan continued, as if he knew that she’d glanced at him to try to see if there was any resemblance. “Aside from basic body type—height and weight, you know, standard gorilla build. Lots of upper body strength with twigs for legs. I got that direct from Stan Senior.”
Twigs for legs. He actually thought ... Teri kept her mouth tightly shut, afraid to tell him that she thought his legs were as perfect as the rest of him.
“As far as looks go, though, I don’t take after my mother either—except for the fair skin. And I certainly didn’t inherit her patience, that’s for damn sure.” Something in his voice had changed. It was almost imperceptible, but Teri heard it. He was telling her things he didn’t usually tell people. Or maybe she just wished he was.
“She was really something,” Stan said, with that same little trace of ... wistfulness? Yes, wistfulness in his voice. Teri wasn’t imagining it. Big, bad Senior Chief Wolchonok had loved his mother deeply. “She was from Denmark—she lived there as a kid, came over after the war with her older sister. Do you know, the envoy from Israel—Helga Shuler—she knew my mother in Denmark. It’s the weirdest thing—she has the same accent when she speaks English that my mother did. It’s nice, you know? After this is over, I’m going to sit down with her and talk.”
This man wanted to be friends with her, Teri realized. Nothing more than friends. Stan couldn’t have been more clear about that if he’d taken out a full page ad in the New York Times to accompany his body language. But he didn’t have to. She could take a hint.
Stan liked her. He’d said so. But when he’d said it, he was using the adult definition of the word liked, not the seventh grade definition. In fact, he probably thought of her the same way he thought of Mike Muldoon—she was just another young clueless kid to watch out for, to take under his badass protective wing. And Stan had one hell of a protective wing, there was no doubt about that.
He’d continuously gone way out of his way to be kind to her. Helping her get away from San Diego and Joel Hogan. His attempts last night to start desensitizing her to confrontations.
He’d spent over an hour and a half with her last night—time he could have been sleeping. He’d made sure she wasn’t alone by sitting with her on the airplane, and then arranging for her to have dinner with Mike Muldoon.
Teri owed him, big time. And since he’d made it rather clear that his interest in her was nothing more than that of mentor or some variation of Sea Daddy, he certainly wouldn’t appreciate the complications of a full body massage leading to a night of blazing hot sex. Which would lead to shared quarters for the rest of this operation, which would lead to her moving into his charming little bungalow back in San Diego ...
Yeah, dream on, Teresa.
What are your goals for your personal life? She hadn’t answered Stan’s question last night because in truth, she didn’t know the answer.
She knew she wanted to spend more time laughing. She wanted to feel more relaxed and at peace. She wanted to be happy. She wanted to stop being afraid. But what kind of a goal was that?
Stan had stopped talking about his mother. They were sitting there, Teri realized, in silence. But it was a companionable silence. His glower was gone. He was just looking at her, and as she met his eyes, he smiled that smile that made the world seem to shift beneath her feet.
The smile that made her want to kiss him.
Instead she held out the last of the freezer bags she’d brought with her. “I made some iced coffee. I figured you could probably use both the caffeine and something cold to drink.”
He had the funniest look in his eyes as he opened the bag.
“There’s not really ice in it,” she quickly explained. “I put the coffee in the hotel freezer for most of the morning. And I made sure it was brewed with bottled water, so it’s definitely safe to drink. You don’t have to worry.”
He took off the lid, took a sip. “Holy God. It’s—”
“More like a Slusheee than an iced coffee, I know. I got lucky—the power didn’t go off while it was in the freezer.”
“This is ... I’m ... Thank you, Lieutenant. Very much.”
Oh, my God, the funny look in his eye wasn’t because he’d been afraid she’d unknowingly made the iced coffee with tainted hotel ice. It was because he thought she was hitting on him, like this was some kind of Starbucks-style come on—drink my coffee now, hot stud, and do me later.
His response was to call her by her rank, to retreat from their still shaky, newly formed friendship. God, was the thought of a more intimate relationship with her really that repulsive?
“It’s good, isn’t it?” she said as brightly as she could manage. “The other guys—Mike and WildCard in particular—really liked it, too. I brought, you know, some for everyone.” Thank God that she had. Teri stood up, not wanting to see his relief. “Well, I better let you get back to—”
“Did you just finish a shift?”
She’d spent the morning ferrying SEALs and other U.S. personnel back and forth from the airport, to the airfield, to the hotel. The trip from the hotel to this airfield took about fifteen minutes each way. But she could make it from the hotel to the Kazabek airport in about three minutes flat.
“I’m not exactly finished. I’m on standby. I’m here in case you or Lieutenant Starrett need a helo on short order.”
“You know, if you don’t sit down, I’m going to have to stand, too,” he told her. “It’s one of those crazy lieutenantsenior chief things. Do you mind? I mean, as long as you’re not going anywhere in a hurry ... ?”
Teri sat down, both glad and resentful as hell that he’d gone back to talking to her as if they were friends. Unless ...
Maybe he was seeing someone. Maybe he had a girlfriend back in San Diego. Maybe he was attracted to Teri, but he was too honest and loyal, too upstanding and decent even to think about being unfaithful.
“You wanna help?” he asked her. “As long as you’re not needed to fly anywhere, we need a few more terrorists to shoot.”
To ... shoot?
He smiled at the look she knew was on her face.
“The bullets aren’t real. We use training gear. Computer controlled lasers. You’ll have a weapon, too. It’s fun—you get into the mock-up and wait for us to storm the plane, try to shoot us before we shoot you.”
“I’m not a very good shot,” she admitted. Sure, she’d had weapons training, but ...
“You’ll have an assault weapon. Point and spray. I’ll remind you how to use it. It’ll come back to you.”
“Still, it’s hardly fair. Me against a team of SEALs?”
“It’s not going to be a fair fight against the real tangos,” Stan told her. “They’re amateurs, while we’ve been training for scenarios like this for years. Come on, at this point we really just need warm bodies.”
“Gee, when you put it that way, how can I say no?”
“Terrific.” He smiled again.
And she was lost.
Teri discharged her laser weapon gingerly. Stan knew that she’d had weapons training to be a helo pilot, but there was no doubt about it. Teri Howe was not a natural when it came to handling weapons.
But that was okay. To give her credit, she was up for the challenge. And he’d managed to live through reminding her how to hold the weapon. He’d had to touch her, move her arms and hands into a less awkward position. It had been a job and a half making sure his touch came across as impersonal, businesslike. But he’d done it.
“Any other questions?” Stan asked her now.
“When did your mother pass away?”
He stared at her.
“When you spoke of her, you said was,” she added.
Stan picked up one of the training weapons the team would be using in the next few minutes for this exercise. As he checked it, he sensed more than saw Teri start to back away.
“I’m sorry, it’s none of my business. It’s just ... I got the feeling that you had been particularly close and ... I apologize for overstepping—”
“Twenty-one years ago,” he told her quietly. “She died the summer after I graduated high school.”
He glanced at her, saw her doing the math. Yeah, that’s right. He was only thirty-nine years old. Just a little too young for the father figure she was searching for.
And that’s what this was all about—the dinner last night, the coffee today. All of the elements of a healthy dose of hero worship had fallen neatly into place.
Teri was looking for guidance and approval, but she also wanted more. She wanted more than for him to fill her former SEAL friend Lenny’s long-empty shoes.
It was the stupidest thing. Stan had given her Muldoon, in all of his shining, Boy Scout, good-looking glory. And she liked the kid—he knew she did. Stan had seen the two of them together, seen her holding the ensign’s hand. There was something between them—or at least there would be if only she’d let it develop.
But she’d been in Stan’s room last night, making sure he had something to eat. She’d brought him coffee today—and despite what she’d said about bringing some for everyone, he knew the truth. She’d brought it for him. She’d shaded him from the freaking sun, for Christ’s sake.
If that wasn’t hero worship, he didn’t know what was.
Maybe he could twist it to his advantage—this blatant admiration he could see in her eyes. He could touch her again, let his hands linger. Let her know that he’d welcome her showing up in his room again tonight.
And maybe she’d go to bed with him because her own sense of normal was so warped, because she’d been some kind of hideous victim as a child. And he still didn’t know of what. God, it was driving him crazy.
Yes sir, he could take advantage of her trust, and wouldn’t he be proud of himself then?
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Teri whispered, as if he’d said it had been only twenty-one weeks or even days instead of years since his mother had died. As if the wound were still raw and painful. Her eyes were so soft, he thought he might go blind if he looked directly at her, like looking into the sun.
He focused on the next weapon, its cold weight in his hands centering him. It, too, was in working order. He picked up the next.
“It was lung cancer,” he said, more comfortable with the facts. “She made me quit smoking.”
“You smoked?”
“In high school, yeah. Told you I’ve done some stupid things in my life. But both my parents smoked while I was growing up, so ...” He shrugged. “When she was diagnosed—and it was stage four; there was not a lot of hope that she would survive—she made both me and Stan Senior quit. It was not a fun time to be living in our house, you better believe that, both of us going cold turkey, her so sick. But we did it, you know?”
For her.
“Do you really think of your father as Stan Senior?” Teri asked. “That’s the second time you called him that.”
“What is this? Interrogate the senior chief day?” he countered with a laugh.
“It’s just ... you know so much about me,” she said. “And I know hardly anything about you.”
He turned to face her. It had taken him only five weapons—all checked and ready to go—before he’d regained his equilibrium enough to look her in the eye again. Shit, he was in trouble here.
“I grew up in Chicago. Enlisted in the Navy out of high school.” After his mother’s long illness, there hadn’t been enough money to send both him and his sister to college, so he’d gotten his education via the Navy. “It was supposed to be temporary, but I got into the BUD/S program—SEAL training, you know? And it turned into my entire life. It’s what I do. It’s who I am. What you see is what you get. There’s not a whole lot of mystery here, Lieutenant.”
“Except for the four nieces and restoring the bungalow and the antiques ...”
“If you know all that, you know more than most people know about me,” he pointed out. He was glowering at her, but she didn’t back down. Not one inch. Amazing. Figures she’d choose now to finally start using her backbone.
“Did your father ever remarry?” she asked.
“No.”
“What are you going to do after you retire?”
Oh, Christ. “I don’t know! Sleep late in the mornings for about five years. Jesus, Teri ...”
“Hi, Senior, we’re two more of your terrorists. Can you set us up?” Alyssa Locke and her FBI partner approached, saving Stan’s ass before he did something stupid like telling Teri about his idea to furnish his house with antiques that he’d then turn around and sell.
Or his equally stupid-ass idea to sell the house to some bungalow lover who wanted the charm without the restoration work. With the money from the sale, he’d buy a sailboat and live like Jimmy Buffett for a year or two, floating around the Caribbean, at one with the ocean. Then he’d find another bungalow in need of serious repair, get a mortgage, and start all over again. Fix it and sell it. Sail around for a while. Again and again.
He could live all over the country, because the Arts and Crafts revival had spread like a weed from California at the turn of the century. He could find a bungalow in virtually any town in any state and restore it to its original simple charm. He could spend some time in Chicago, near his sister and his golden-haired nieces—enough time to finally learn to tell the four little girls apart.
Of course, they’d be in high school before he’d be ready to retire.
But he didn’t have to tell her any of that, thank you, Jesus and Alyssa Locke.
Locke and her partner didn’t really need more than a hand pointing in the right direction, but Stan stayed with them, scared to death of what Teri Howe’s next question for him might be, terrified of turning this game she was playing back around on her and asking her the too-intimate questions he was both dying and dreading to know the answers to.
When she was a child, did someone she trusted—her father, or a teacher or someone in a position of authority—take advantage of the adoration and hero worship they saw in those big brown eyes?
What had happened all those years ago to make her still so afraid?
Stan briefly closed his eyes, remembering the look on her face as she’d given him the coffee. Accept me. Encourage me.
He’d seen that look before—usually on the faces of young enlisted men who were just starting to discover themselves as SEAL candidates in the BUD/S training program. The men who’d been told too many times that they’d never amount to much. The ones who’d been nearly completely brainwashed into believing that was true.
Nearly completely. There was still a spark left, though. The spark that made them push to get into BUD/S even though everyone told them they’d be the first to ring out. A spark of life. A spark of hope.
Love me unconditionally, so I can start learning to love myself, Senior Chief.
Expect only the best from me, and I’ll give it to you, Senior Chief.
Give me shit when I slip and deserve shit because that’s further proof that I matter to you, Senior Chief.
Be my hero, Senior Chief, and never let me down.
In the past, it had been a burden at times—his role of the infallible hero, the mighty senior chief—but it had never been so heavy as it was right now.
Because he’d seen something else in Teri Howe’s eyes, something different, something he’d never seen in all of the hopeful young faces that had come before.
Kiss me, Senior Chief.
So, Stan, are you seeing anyone back in San Diego?
Teri silently cursed herself for not being fast enough, for letting the moment escape without asking the senior chief the question she really wanted answered.
Although that one would’ve certainly tipped him off as to her feelings, wouldn’t it have?
God, she was such a coward. She was actually relieved that she hadn’t managed to ask him that.
Teri smiled automatically as Stan introduced her to the two FBI agents and the two SAS men who, with her, would be playing the terrorists while the SEALs ran their drill.
And then he was gone, leaving her holding the unwieldy weapon, wishing she were brave enough to be waiting in Stan’s room again tonight.
Naked and lying on his bed.
Yeah, like she’d ever have the guts to do that in a million years.
She could just imagine him gently covering her up with a blanket, gathering up her clothes, and leading her to the bathroom, so she could get dressed in private.
And that would be the likeliest outcome of that scenario. Stan would surely do his best to make sure she wasn’t too embarrassed as he kicked her out of his room. And he would kick her out instead of flinging off his own clothes as he rushed to join her on the bed. Instead of kissing her mouth, her neck, her breasts, his mouth hot and wet and impossibly sweet, the heavy weight of his body pressing against her as he pushed himself between her thighs, as she lifted her hips to meet him and— Boom!
Teri was pushed back on her rear end against the wooden deck of the mock-up, more from surprise rather than the force of any explosion. She felt her head smack the wall with a brain-jarring thwack.
Stan had told her there would be something called a flash bang when they entered, but she’d had no idea it would be so loud, that the sudden flash of light would make it nearly impossible to see as the SEALs rushed into the mock-up of the plane.
Point and spray, he’d told her, but she’d bobbled the assault weapon when she fell. It took her several long seconds to find both the gun and the trigger with her vision still filled with the aftereffects of a brightness akin to the surface of the sun.
And then someone was alongside her, appearing in her peripheral vision. She didn’t see more than a shadowy shape of a man and a gun, and she turned just as she found the trigger. Point and spray.
She saw through the spots of light still floating across her line of sight that it was Mike Muldoon, and he looked surprised. No, he looked flat-out shocked.
She’d killed him.
Well, mock killed him.
But then her weapon stopped working, and Lieutenant Starrett was striding toward them, and just like that—it couldn’t have lasted more than thirty seconds—it was over.
“What the fuck were you waiting for?” Starrett lit into Muldoon.
“Teri was down, Lieutenant. I thought she was hurt. I thought—” Muldoon shook his head.
“She’s not Teri, she’s a terrorist. You hesitate and you’re the one we take out of there in a body bag. She fucking killed you!”
“I’m sorry, sir—”
“You okay?” It was Stan’s voice.
Teri turned to see him crouching on the other side of her, sweat dripping down the side of his face, looking sexy as hell. He touched her, his fingers gentle as he explored the back of her head, where she’d connected with the wall.
“I’m fine.” What he was doing felt very nice, but it wasn’t necessary. She hadn’t been hurt. No more than a slight bruise, anyway.
“I saw you go down.” He checked her again, more slowly this time. “You bounced your head off that bulkhead pretty hard.”
“I have a thick skull.” Her voice came out sounding breathless and odd. It was all she could do not to close her eyes, to lean back into his hands and pretend he was touching her that way, holding her head in place, because he was about to kiss her.
Stan pulled his hands away from her, killing the fantasy. He stood up, helping her to her feet. “Lopez!” he shouted.
“I don’t care if one of the terrorists looks like your favorite uncle Frank,” Starrett was continuing his tirade. He was still right in Muldoon’s face. “I don’t care if one of ’em is a seventy-year-old gray-haired lady. Head shots, Muldoon. Double pops. Without hesitation.”
SEAL Team Sixteen’s medic, Jay Lopez, was already right there, next to the senior chief. He had a flashlight that he used to check Teri’s eyes, and then it was his turn to touch the back of her head, feeling for a bump or a bruise.
“She all right, Senior?” Starrett asked Stan.
“I’m fine,” Teri said again. “Really.”
“She looks good, Lieutenant,” Lopez announced.
Stan leaned closer to Starrett. “Next go round, have Muldoon take out Howe again—or Locke. He needs practice eliminating female targets. We might as well take advantage of having Howe and Locke around.”
“Good idea, Senior.” Starrett raised his voice. “Who’s got the details of what just went down?”
Stan looked at Teri, leaned closer to speak directly into her ear. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Letting your team get practice killing women?” she murmured back. “Why ever would I mind?”
“What we do isn’t pretty,” Stan said, speaking softly enough so that only she could hear him. “But it doesn’t do anyone any good to think about terrorists as anything but targets that need eliminating. Some of the men have trouble with the female targets. My personal hell is when children are involved. Twelve-year-olds with Uzis. Babies used as human shields. But if you hesitate, you’re dead. Or worse, your teammate’s dead.”
Babies. Teri looked at him, but he’d already moved slightly away from her and he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“Estimated seventeen passengers would have been killed or injured.” WildCard Karmody had access to some kind of Palm Pilot. “One SEAL death—Muldoon—courtesy of the vicious terrorist Teri Howe. The senior chief got Taggett with a double shot, O’Leary got Ian from out in sniperland—right between the eyes, and Starrett took down Howe. Hey, here’s a fun fact. Howe’s weapon was discharged the most number of times. Congratulations, Teri. You actually took out two of the other tangos—Locke and Cassidy—within two seconds of the flash bang. You’re responsible for most of the civilians killed as well. Hoo-yah, girl.”
“You scored points for both sides,” Lieutenant Starrett told her with a grin. “Way to go.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling her cheeks heat. God, she didn’t ask to do this. “I thought I’d dropped the gun. I didn’t even realize I was pulling the trigger... .”
Stan was back, standing beside her again. He touched her—a brief squeeze of her arm. “Hey, you did good. Your reaction was far more realistic than anyone else’s. Most tangos have no experience in this kind of thing—chances are they’re going to drop their weapons, too. What we’ve got to do is move faster going in so there’s no time for anyone to spray the cabin with bullets.” He looked around at the team, landing on Muldoon. “Right?”
“You going to hesitate on me ever again?” Starrett asked Muldoon.
The ensign looked determined, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “No sir, I will not.”
“Good, let’s do this at least three times more before lunch.”
Stan lingered as the other SEALs went back outside. “Now that you know what the flash bang sounds like—”
“I’ll manage to stay on my feet next time,” Teri reassured him.
“No, I want you to do the same thing—”
Crack!
The sound came from outside, from the port side of the plane, and Stan went to one of the windows to look out. “Ah, Christ!”
Teri looked, too. The port wing had broken clear off. She could see Lieutenant Starrett on the ground, his face grim as he surveyed the damage.
He looked up, directly at Stan. “Will you please fucking go and fucking get me a real fucking World Airlines 747, Senior Chief? Right fucking now?”
Stan looked at Teri. “Looks like I’m going to need a ride to the airport.”
“Don’t you mean the fucking airport?” she asked, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.
God, she loved making Stan laugh.