The muscles around his jaw bulged, and his eyes widened, unblinking. He was preternaturally still, carved from the ice of his eyes, until he said, “Yes.”
“How many of them are there?” she asked.
His silence in the white-blank room was deafening as he paused, statue-hard, and said,“Forty-seven,and I know every name that each one represents. They are the skeletons of frogs, representing dead frogmen, my fellow Navy SEALs who I couldn’t save, who I knew I couldn’t save when Iledthe operation.”
Sarah asked, “Did you complete the mission?”
That’s when Blaze broke eye contact and leaned over, dropping his phone onto the floor and burying the heels of his hands in his eyes. “No.”
She went over and put her arm around him. “But it was what you had to do, right?”
His voice was hoarse. “Yes, and this time, I will saveyou.The whole world can fucking burn, butI will save you.”
30
WIRED
BLAZE
Lieutenant Commander Blaze Robinson, DEVGRU, had led dozens of US Navy SEALs into perilous operations and sometimes led them out.
But nothing was grimmer than riding in the back seat of a black car through the hot streets of New York City, his ankles zip-tied together and his hands bound behind his back, with Sarah Bell in the seat next to him.
Sarah was defenseless, no matter what she thought. Though kittens have needle-sharp claws, they are still tiny, delicate, vulnerablekittens.
He had to get her out of her aunt’s clutches alive.
Clutches,dear God, what was he thinking?
Mob bosses didn’t haveclutches.They had spheres of influence and operational opportunities.
They also had priorities.
Blaze needed to remove Sarah from Mary Varvara Bell’s list of priorities.
A new set of mercenaries from the Koch Group had come to retrieve them from Logan’s apartment, probably because Blaze had incapacitated a significant percentage of the previous squad.
One of the new guys was driving. He’d barely glanced in the rearview mirror at them because the asshole mercenary with the skull trim was riding in the passenger seat because he was one of the few guys who was uninjured, dammit.
Blaze should’ve shot that one through the eye.
The new guy turned the car into a parking garage under the downtown skyscraper where Bell’s office was and parked next to the elevator.
When Skull Trim walked around to Sarah’s side of the car and muscled her out, laying his foul hands on her upper arm, Blaze schooled his face to be neutral, though he was devising ways to murder him.
New Guy clipped the zip ties around Blaze’s ankles and led him to the elevator, maintaining alertness as they walked.
This guy was smarter than Skull Trim and thus more dangerous.
The elevator ride was not the opportunity Blaze needed, and it was too early in the game, anyway.
He needed more evidence first.
The wired microphone and transmitter sewn into his shirt stiffened the seam under his left armpit and itched his side.
Again, the elevator opened into an office hallway, and the two mercenaries led them to the door at the very end of Mary Varvara Bell’s elongated office.
Again, Blaze and Sarah made the long trek between white couches and conversation areas grouped on the pristine carpeting, ice chunks floating on a frozen sea.
