Holding Out For A Hero: SEALs, Soldiers, Spies, Cops, FBI Agents and Rangers (41 page)

“I can do that, cousin Kill,” she acquiesced, but her eyes spoke volumes. “Have your relatives eaten dinner? Maybe they would like a bite to eat?”

Nick glanced over his shoulder at Jed. He saw the questions in Jaymee’s eyes, and knew the night of hot wild sex he’d planned wasn’t going to happen. Another painful thing he could blame on his dear cousin, and, for whom, he added, he had a few questions too. Like, why was Grace with him? It was the first time he’d seen his cousin bring his daughter anywhere while on a mission. Something definitely wasn’t right.

“A drink will be nice, but no need for food, thank you,” Jed replied for Nick. “May Grace go with you, Miss Barrows? I promise to get her off your hands as soon as possible.”

“Of course,” Jaymee said, and smiled at the teenager. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

“She isn’t allowed anything but water,” Jed said.

“Don’t you trust me, Daddy Dearest?” Grace mocked, suddenly sounding very grown up. Her calling Jed ‘dad’ confirmed Jaymee’s suspicion of their relationship, but her demeanor was hardly daughter-like, as she stood there, laughter in her eyes. So different from that cold, expressionless man she was addressing.

“I just wanted to make sure Miss Barrows doesn’t tempt you with orange juice,” he replied calmly.

Grace groaned, as if in pain. Then she pouted.

Jaymee frowned, puzzled. “She can’t drink anything but water? Do you have a special diet, Grace?”

The young girl sighed dramatically. “No,” she answered in a doleful voice. “I’m in training.” Realizing Jaymee’s incomprehension, she continued, “I can’t eat for two days, you see, and I’m addicted to OJ. See you later, Jed.”

Moving down the path Jaymee and Nick had earlier taken, Grace turned to look back at the two men, with a cheeky smile and the two green pigtails that made her look like an imp. “Oh, by the way, how much do you want me to tell her when she questions me, Nick?”

Her voice was innocent enough, but Jaymee noted the very adult mockery in those dark eyes. She seemed to be taking a lot of delight in riling her cousin.

“Enough to live up to your name, trouble,” answered Nick wryly.

Grace chuckled and skipped out of sight. Jaymee threw Nick a troubled gaze before following the younger girl, backtracking to her house.

Nick plowed his fingers through his damp hair. “What was with that fucking dramatic entrance? You scared the hell out of her.”

Jed calmly brushed dirt off his clothes. “She’s quite brave, attacking me like that.” He gave that ghost of a smile again. “Protecting her big, strong lover.”

Nick considered Jed more his brother than cousin. They had grown up together—Jed on the streets in Dublin and he, in a farm house, not far outside the city. His parents were very poor, but his cousin had it worse, showing up now and then at their door with bruises left by his stepfather. He loved his cousin, but the son of a bitch was proud and refused any help of any kind. One day, he’d just disappeared and they’d all thought him dead. One never knew with Dublin. Gang warfare, crime, poverty, and political assassinations were tough on a kid living on the streets.

A few years later, Jed had suddenly reappeared—a very different Jed, in uniform—and had invited Nick to get out of Ireland, like he did. Nick went. He had then served with him in the same Ranger platoon.

It was Jed who had recruited him into COMCEN’s Virus Program, as part of the nine-member unit, a team of evasive experts trained in various ways to destroy. Nick’s expertise was in the electronic area, in breaking codes and eliminating enemy plans by planting counter-programs within their computer, missile, and satellite systems. Jed had similar training, but his job was deadlier. He assimilated information when there was no way to steal into the system electronically, and he was, simply put, an assassin. Jed was one of the few people Nick knew whose switch was always off. Those few years he’d disappeared—whatever training he’d undergone had taken away a part of his soul.

“Gracie mentioned she’s in training,” he said, a slight frown forming. “Why are you doing that?”

Grace was sixteen or seventeen—he could never remember—but being that she barely saw her father between assignments, the fact she was in training with him now was significant.

Jed didn’t answer immediately. Walking behind a bush, he pulled out two backpacks. In a voice devoid of emotion, he said, “They cancelled Diamond’s wife.”

Nick inhaled sharply, shocked. “Emma is dead?” he repeated the information slowly. He couldn’t believe it. Emma was part of an independent agency called GEM. An old girlfriend, in fact. Good friends afterwards, he was the one who had introduced her, code-named Emerald, to Diamond, joking they would make the perfect engagement ring. They had hit it off immediately and he had been glad for them. Anger struggled with rising grief. “Not…like my accident?”

Jed slung one backpack on. “There was nothing we could do. Diamond and I were standing on the beach.”

“Explosives,” breathed out Nick. His hand fisted. He cursed once. Twice. But it didn’t ease the pain of losing a friend. “How’s Diamond taking it?”

“He’s AWOL at the moment. There was also a bomb planted in Winter’s farmhouse. They’re targeting family members.”

Realization dawned. “That’s why you have Gracie with you.”

Jed nodded. “I left a message at Command saying I won’t be back till they find me. That should give me enough time to train Grace. I connect through to check up on activities now and then, and caught your message. That’s why we’re here so soon. Grace and I were in the vicinity, since I wanted to train her in jungle heat for a while.”

“Does this mean the killers know all our identities?” Nick asked. Things were worse than he’d suspected. He’d thought only he was the target, not the entire unit.

“No way of knowing, but they’re looking for the few of us from that last assignment. Command sent out trackers to neutralize the situation. It’ll take some time.”

“That’s why you left me the message to stay dead. You didn’t want the enemy to know I was still alive.”

“Not until you were aware of the situation,” Jed agreed, throwing the other backpack at Nick.

They made their way slowly toward Jaymee’s house. Jed kept quiet, giving Nick time to absorb and process the information.

Nick ran through the events that had led up to the last meeting. He mentally skipped past the knowledge his friends were dead. Not now. Later.

A few minutes later, he said, “They think they’d gotten rid of me, but they aren’t sure whether the others have my information. Someone betrayed us because they knew our rendezvous point.”

“That means they are after four of us, me included,” Jed said without any inflection in his tone. “I suspected as much. Now you know why I want Grace with me, prepared to defend herself if needed.”

Nick nodded. Grace was probably the only person in the world Jed loved. There was no closer relationship he knew than Jed’s and Grace’s, and certainly none stranger. They were more equal friends than they were the usual father-daughter bonding. Grace had known about her father’s “different” lifestyle since she could talk, and had basically grown up without a parent, living with her maternal grandmother in Ohio. Nick loved her, but sometimes she was too mature in her observations even for him.

Jed interrupted his thoughts. “Do you have it?”

Nick understood his reference. “Yes.”

“Where is it?”

“I haven’t broken the code yet.”

“We have to do it and give the code to Command. That’s the only way to neutralize them, destroy their satellites.”

“Yes,” Nick agreed. “I’m close. I’ll hook it up tonight and you can take a look. We’ll decide on the course of action.”

“What about your other plans with Miss Barrows?” Again, that very light mockery seeped back into Jed’s voice.

Nick sighed. “I’m going to have to make some deft explanations.”

“Lie,” Jed suggested.

“She hates lies, and sees right through them.”

Jed arched an eyebrow. “It’s part of the job, Nick. Evasion is our unit’s core work,” he reminded him smoothly.

“She’s not an assignment, Jed,” said Nick, in a low and furious voice.

“She’ll be your weak link, and then they will come after her.”

“Not going to let that happen.”

They broke out from the woods, walking into the well-kept back yard of the house.

Jed’s light eyes glittered in the setting darkness. “Don’t make my mistake.”

Nick didn’t say anything, although he knew what Jed meant. Jed never spoke about his wife to anyone else, not even his daughter. Grace had grown up thinking her mother had died a natural death.

Staring up into the lit windows of the ranch house, with that back porch he had grown to like, Nick remembered the vision of Jaymee and her children. He recalled his silent promise to leave her with good memories and a hopeful future. There wasn’t much time left, now that Jed had shown up. There was a mission he had to accomplish, and once it was over, he was going to have to leave Jaymee. He had to, for her safety. There was no way he was going to put her in danger and lose her. Like Diamond lost his wife. His lips set into a tight straight line as he made his way toward the lit house. His companion didn’t utter a word, his silver eyes hooded and thoughtful.

***

Back at her house, Jaymee brought out some washcloths, knowing she would probably need some for the two men who were coming behind them. The initial fright when she first met this strange father-daughter team had disappeared, especially since the younger girl was a normal, talkative teenager. Granted, she looked weird with that green hair and she did come up with some very adult observations now and then, but she found Grace a very smart and interesting young lady.

In fact, she felt startlingly calm about the whole thing. In the back of her mind, she knew she was just going through the motions, that in reality, she wanted to scream and pound on something in frustration. Instinct told her she was going to lose Nick—was that even his real name?—very soon. She breathed in deeply. She would stay calm. No sense in being angry over what she’d warned herself all along.

Pushing away her troubled thoughts, she studied the younger girl as she cleaned up at the sink. With the green hair and exotic features, she looked extremely alien in Jaymee’s very normal kitchen. Small boned and doll-like, her skin shone like fine porcelain, rosy with the bloom of youth. Now that they were in a brightly-lit room, she could see where the girl resembled her father. She had the same mouth, the lower lip full and generous, except she tended to keep hers in the typical sulky teenage pout. It made her look very grown-up. And on her chin was a tiny dimple she’d noticed on her father’s, not as deep a cleft, but still emphasizing her mouth like an exclamation point.

When Grace was done, Jaymee offered her another glass of water. She went to sit at the kitchen table, meeting her scrutiny with knowing eyes, as if she had been aware of being watched. Her brown eyes sparkled with a boldness beyond her years, which from a quick guess, was either fifteen or sixteen. She took several greedy swallows of water, reminding Jaymee of the earlier conversation in the woods.

“Tell me about your training,” she said, wetting a washcloth for herself. “Are you sure you can’t take anything but water?”

“Don’t even show me any OJ,” Grace said, then rolled her eyes before smiling cheekily. “Jed is drying me out. I’m doing survivalist training, a more sophisticated way of calling dieting to near-death.”

“Sounds horrible,” Jaymee remarked casually.

“It is horrible. You should hear my tummy after two days without food.”

“What?” Jaymee put down her cloth, shocked. There was simply no reason to put a young girl through that. Maybe they were just too poor? “You’re going to eat right now.”

However, Grace just shook her head emphatically. “Don’t worry, I’m fine.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Jaymee was outraged. That cousin of Nick’s must be insane. “You don’t have any extra pounds to lose, Grace.” She walked to the refrigerator. “Come on, don’t be proud. What would you like to eat? Chicken? A hamburger? Salad?”

Grace leaned back in her chair, her eyes clear and solemn. “Thank you for caring,” she said, suddenly very polite, “but my dad and I have a program to follow. We’ll eat tomorrow, don’t worry. Maybe he’ll even let me have some juice.” She tempered her refusal with a smile.

Jaymee shook her head in exasperation. “This is getting more confusing by the minute,” she said to no one in particular. “Tell me something, Grace, why did your father hurt Nick?”

The girl shrugged, playing with the rim of her glass. “He was too slow.”

“What?”

“Jed would never hurt Killi…Nick intentionally, Miss Barrows. Nick was...ah...not paying attention.”

“That doesn’t explain anything!” Jaymee exclaimed. “People don’t go around hurling missiles at their cousins to see whether they’re paying attention!”

People didn’t go around with green hair either, but here was one person doing that. In fact, people didn’t go around pretending to be construction workers when they were electronic experts either, and she knew of someone like that too. All in all, she decided she was seeing too many people who weren’t what they seemed and she was getting heartily tired of it.

Grace just gave her a wink, then examined her fingernails, which were also bright green. “I’ll leave Nick to explain that one,” she told her, humor in her dark eyes.

Jaymee looked at Grace across the room, not at all sure how to handle a fifteen year-old going on twenty. “OK, tell me this. What were you two doing on my property?”

“We traced Nick’s instructions to here, but couldn’t get him alone,” Grace explained. “I guess Jed decided he didn’t want to wait another night outside the other house. Too many mosquitoes in your woods, Miss Barrows.”

“Jaymee,” Jaymee said absently, still trying to untangle the knot of information in her brain. “What do you mean, traced Nick to here? Didn’t you know where he was all along?”

Grace stretched her back sinuously, reminding Jaymee of a lazy kitten. Twirling the end of one of her pigtails with a finger, she sat considering an answer for a few moments. Finally, she replied carefully, “Nick hasn’t told you anything at all, has he?”