We were immediatelytransported home upon returning to base the night Adam had been captured. Probably because they knew if they left us in country, the lot of us might just go rogue, telling command to go fuck themselves. That RTB order fucking gutted me.
A Navy SEAL had been taken prisoner.
Just the thought of it was beyond comprehension. Granted, we’d been stripped down without any identifying insignia when we’d INFIL’ed, but when—because there was no if—they started interrogating Adam, he’d identify himself as Navy.
There were very few reasons for a Navy man to be geared up executing a mission like the one we’d been on, so there would be no fucking doubt as to who we were. Once the realization set in, they’d torture him to find out what we were doing there.
When we returned to Vah Beach, Foster didn’t even go home, which was rare. Usually, his wife, Julie, was waiting on him as soon as we were wheels-down, and she whisked him away ASAP—after giving the whole team a lesson on how best to welcome your frogman home.
This time, instead of a show, as soon as the ramp on the plane opened, Foster had ordered us all to the cages. We’d geared up and headed to the training facility.
Foster put us to work, pushing us relentlessly. He ran us through several training ops. And by several, I meant days of the fucking things. I didn’t think we gone home for the first three days we were stateside. We’d gone over so many different ways to breach a fucking door, I’d lost count.
With Adam missing from the dynamic, Foster seemed fucking determined to get the team humming without him. It pissed me the fuck off, but he was right to fucking do it. We had to be ready when they found him. And it was when, because I fucking refused to consider the alternative.
We’d run fucking drills, until we were falling the fuck down. We were so damn tired. Then he’d made us do it again. The sun had gone down and come back up and was heading back toward the horizon when he’d finally called it quits.
Foster was hanging his hammock in his cage when Mercer came in.
“Go home,” Mercer commanded as soon as the door shut behind him.
I turned to look at him. He was not fucking happy. Legs spread, arms crossed with that pissed-off look we rarely saw directed at us because it was usually reserved for the brass when they did something fucking stupid.
Like sending us fucking home when one of our own was sitting in some unknown hellhole.
Foster ignored him, plopping his ass in his hammock. “Not happening.”
Mercer walked toward Foster. “Don’t make me order you to go the fuck home. Or worse, make me call Julie and let her know you’ve been stateside for several days without coming to see her and your kids.”
Foster glared at Mercer as he stood. “With all due respect, Commander, leave my wife out of this. The team is staying here so that word doesn’t spread that a SEAL has been captured. All Adam needs is for the media to give those motherfuckers a fucking stage to spew their bullshit.”
Foster lay back down in the hammock, and we followed suit. Mercer sighed and turned to walk away.
Just as Mercer got to the door, Foster called, “By the way, Mercer, Julie knows I’m home, and she told me to keep my fucking ass on base if I knew what was good for me.”
Mercer laughed as he glanced over his shoulder at us. “Of course she did. Y’all get some sleep.”
Julie Holt is a damn fine Navy wife and a good fucking woman.
Lying there as the rest of the team dropped off to sleep, I stewed in the dark, scary-ass mess that had taken over my mind.
My life had changed the moment I met Adam DuBois. I’d found the person who was my other half, who made me feel shit I never thought I’d get to feel. I’d never be the same if he didn’t make it home.
I sighed. Sitting on my ass waiting spun me up worse than anything on this planet. It was one thing to be waiting on a target package. That meant training. Specific training, not the generalized shit Foster had us doing. It meant gearing up, and—oh, yeah—if Foster Holt and Adam DuBois were your one and two, some more training never hurt. Much. They were sadists.
Doing nothing but waiting, praying a lead was uncovered or a source was found that had the information we needed, was driving us all fucking nuts. It was complete fucking hell. We weren’t just waiting for word as to whether a rescue mission would be given the green light. We also had to wait for Adam to be found when we should have still been outside the wire,kicking in doors. I still couldn’t get those fucking words out of my head.
“We must weigh the gravity of sending in a ground force rescue team versus the gravity of leaving things as is for the time being. We will go get our man, but we cannot kick in every door in the Middle East to do so.”
The mealy-mouth cake eater who had spewed those fucking words should be thankful he was in D.C. on the other side of a screen when he’d mouthed off that fucking nonsense. We were home in Vah Beach, and I’d have been lying if I said I hadn’t given some serious thought to driving up to that viper’s nest in D.C. and taking off the admiral’s head.
Adam had been in those fucking monsters’ hands for a week. There’d been no communication from the hostage takers. We had no fucking idea where they’d taken him, or even any clarification of what enemy combatant group had Adam.
We just knew he’d been taken by what appeared to be an enemy force who had come upon Adam when he was out there providing overwatch for the team. Hell, neither Daniel Lennox, the CIA agent, nor Lieutenant Maree Rakes, the Naval Intelligence officer embedded with our team, knew what group we were dealing with.
Daniel and Maree had scoured every scrap of intel they could find since the op had gone sideways and a fuck-ton of shit leading up to the op. Daniel was good, but Maree was the absolute GOAT when it came to finding things other people couldn’t. I swore she could find shit the cavemen lost when the dinosaurs still roamed.
That skill was proving extremely handy now. Maree had followed the vehicle Adam had been shoved into until it drove into what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse.Appearedbeing the operative word there, because it had been far from it.
