He made a face. “You mean the ninety-nine percent grape jelly and one percent thin layer of overly processed brown crap that belongs in a candy bar on the pieces of white Styrofoam? You know, it’s just as easy to make your own peanut butter in a food processor, and it tastes like actual nuts.”
“Food processor? You’re kidding, right? Did you look at my kitchen? There’s barely room for a microwave. And before you tell me that I don’t need a microwave”—he slammed his mouth shut, having been about to say exactly that—“I happen to like my microwave. It’s perfect for reheating TV dinners.”
His eyes narrowed. She was messing with him, wasn’t she? But with her fast-food eating habits, he couldn’t be completely sure. Making a note to check the freezer for any form of Salisbury when he got back, he let her push him out the door with only a few more warnings before the door closed behind him.
He hated the idea of leaving her alone even for a few hours, but he had to scout the drop area and go through the mission plan before game time tonight.
For most ops SEALs spent weeks, sometimes months, practicing and going through every permutation, often using actual ships, helicopters, and buildings. Before Operation Neptune Spear—the bin Laden raid—Team Six had spent weeks training in North Carolina, in a building constructed to replicate the compound in Abbottabad, and in Nevada to replicate the high altitude for the new stealth Black Hawks.
A couple of hours wasn’t anywhere near enough.
But it was all he had; the op was set for 2200 hours.
Brittany had sent her e-mails and texts and made her phone calls earlier to her boss and coworkers, informing them that she was meeting her source tonight and had “explosive proof” of what had happened to the platoon of SEALs.
If he’d thought she’d been exaggerating her job status, after he heard some of her boss’s response while she was talking to him, John realized she hadn’t been exaggerating at all.
Apparently, her boss, Jameson Cooper, was being pressured by the head of the investigative reporting team to get rid of her, and if she didn’t come up with something soon, he was going to have to move her to the metro news desk.
There was something in “Jameson’s” voice that John didn’t like—he sounded a little too familiar—but John put it aside for now. Brittany had hidden her worry from him, but he knew it was there.
It made him momentarily uneasy, given all that he’d confided in her about what had happened in Russia, but she’d promised him, and he knew he could trust her.
It was strange how he didn’t question it. But he trusted her in the same way he had her brother—with his life.And as she was trusting hers with him, he intended to do everything he could to ensure that nothing went wrong.
The LC was standing by if he needed him, but this was John’s op.
He met his contact at the highway underpass where Brittany had met her source the first time. Had he been more familiar with DC at the time, he would have had a hell of a lot more to say about her business practices. Did she have a fucking death wish? This place was crime central, and hanging around here was asking for trouble. Thinking of her sitting here alone in her car at night made him furious.
He’d been forced to leave the gun he’d taken from Brittany’s attacker in Norway behind, and even he breathed a little easier once Buddha—they were all using code names—handed him the bag with the weapons, body armor, and gear he’d asked for. For the first time since the explosion in Russia, John felt like himself again.
The biggest danger with the hired army was that one of the former operators would recognize him. Over the years he’d crossed paths with a number of SEALs who’d gone into the private sector when they’d decided not to re-up or retired from the Teams after getting their twenty years. But among the sixteen men Buddha had gathered in the abandoned warehouse to sketch out the details of what was going on tonight, John didn’t see any familiar faces.
Buddha—it seemed as if every team had a guy named after the ancient sage—reminded him of a stockier, thicker-necked version of the senior chief. They had the same take-charge, no-nonsense, hard-ass, Spartan-throwback personality that immediately put John at ease. This guy knew what he was doing, and he was good at his job.
For the next few hours they scouted the terrain, made note of entry and exit points, and tried to cover as manypotential scenarios as possible to mitigate the risk of something going wrong.
Basically running it like any other op. Except that John was keenly aware that it wasn’t any other op. With Brittany at the center of it, this private army—who were damned good even if they weren’t his Team Nine brethren—weren’t going to be enough to make him relax.
Nothing was going to make him relax until this was over, the bastards who were after her were caught, and she was out of danger. If anything happened to her...
He couldn’t even think about it without breaking out in a cold sweat. John had never been in this position before, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like feeling vulnerable. It reminded him of the months he’d spent in the hospital sitting by his mother’s bedside. He’d never felt so damned helpless in his life. He never wanted to feel like that again.
But he was coming close now. He wanted to tell himself it was because of the promise he’d made to Brand to keep Brittany safe, but he knew it was a hell of a lot more than that. How much more he didn’t know. This wasStar Trekterritory for him, as in “never gone before.”
He almost didn’t recognize himself. Brittany had turned him into some kind of less evolved, possessive, jealous version of John Donovan. Just hearing the other guy’s voice in the message and thinking of her dating someone else made him feel like smashing something—preferably the other guy’s face. He’d had to do something. So he’d found himself setting down a line he’d never set down before. The one guy/one girl kind of line. As in boyfriend/girlfriend. As in exclusive.
As in something he’d always avoided.
It scared the hell out of him. But for the first time in his life, John realized that he wanted to share more than a bed and a few laughs with someone. He wasn’t sure what it meant—or whether it would be enough to keepfrom hurting her. And maybe that bothered him most of all. Not only had he broken his promise to Brand by messing around with his sister, but he could end up doing the very thing his friend had feared he would do by breaking her heart. For real this time.
At the very least, he owed it to Brand not to do that. But despite John’s attempt to qualify “exclusive” with an “as long as we’re together,” he suspected it might already be too late. He’d seen her face. She thought he was making promises.
But he wasn’t ready for promises. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready. He didn’t know whether he had what it took for that kind of relationship—the permanent type.
He hadn’t exactly had a good role model in that arena. His dad had broken every promise that mattered to his mother. John had seen how it destroyed her and vowed to never let himself do that to anyone. He didn’t want to be anything like his father, so he’d never put himself in the position to be like him.
Until now.
