Protecting the Future (SEAL of Protection Book 8) (16 page)

P
enelope held
her breath and didn’t move a muscle. If she could’ve moved, she still would’ve stayed right where she was. It wasn’t fun looking down the barrel of a gun, even if she knew it wasn’t aimed at her. Her attention stayed on the man standing behind her, holding her immobile in his grasp.

“I said, let her the fuck go. Right now.” Mozart’s voice communicated he was about five seconds away from losing his shit, or blowing someone’s head off.

“How about you drop
your
gun, and stop pointing it at my teammate instead?”

Penelope held her breath. Oh jeez. This was quickly turning into a major clusterfuck. There was another man dressed in desert camouflage now holding a gun at
Mozart’s
head. She didn’t think he was an insurgent, not only because she’d only seen them in whatever raggedy clothes they happened to have, not a uniform, but also because the man had spoken perfect English with only a slight southern twang. But the bottom line was that she had no idea who he was. It would’ve been humorous if she’d been watching it on television back home, safe in her apartment in San Antonio. But being in the middle of it herself was absolutely
not
funny at all. She couldn’t hold back her snarky words, but unfortunately, or fortunately, they came out all garbled because the man behind her still had his hand over her mouth.

Her meaning must’ve come through, if not her words, because the second man who’d appeared out of nowhere said, “Captain Keane Bryson, Delta Force.”

Mozart lowered his pistol immediately and turned to the man. “About fucking time.”

They grinned at each other in a weird manly way, as if they hadn’t just been about to kill each other two seconds earlier.

Penelope squirmed in the hold of the man behind her again and he finally dropped his arms. She turned to glare at him, shoving against his chest with both arms, annoyed because he didn’t even have to step back a foot at her push, before turning back to Mozart and the man who called himself Keane Bryson and saying in a snarky voice, “I don’t know how you found us, or what the hell your plan is, but can we
please
get on with it and get the fuck out of here? If you didn’t notice, we’re not exactly at the Officer’s Club on base.”

The new guy ignored her and turned to Mozart. “She’s got a mouth on her, didn’t expect that.”

Mozart shrugged and agreed, “She does, but she’s one hell of a soldier.”

Penelope was ready to throw up her hands in exasperation at the conversation, but at Mozart’s words, she could only stare at him dumbfounded. He, a Navy SEAL, thought
she
was a hell of a soldier? Well, okay then.

Mozart held out his hand to the man. “Mozart. Glad you’re here. We could use the help. We’ve got a man down, and the rest of us aren’t at a hundred percent.”

“Sit rep,” the captain requested, now all business.

Before Mozart could respond, Wolf appeared out of the brush. He had his finger on the trigger of his pistol and looked ready to use it before seeing Mozart’s signal for friend. Following up behind Wolf was the rest of his team. Penelope was glad to see Abe was still conscious…barely. She went over to Cookie and took some of Abe’s weight on herself. She was so much shorter than them she couldn’t do much, but she figured every little bit would help.

They all watched as five more men materialized out of the desert landscape. Penelope thought it almost looked like a showdown at the O.K. Corral. Six men lined up on one side, seven on the other.

Wolf gestured toward each of the men on his team. “I’m Wolf, this is Mozart, Benny, and Dude. Abe is the one who looks like he’s about to pass out and Cookie is holding him up. You’ve apparently met Tiger, otherwise known as Sergeant Penelope Turner, formerly a guest of ISIS.”

The Army Delta Force men each nodded at the SEALs and their captain introduced them. “I’m Ghost, and this is Fletch, Coach, Hollywood, Beatle, Blade, and Truck.”

The testosterone was thick enough on the ridge to choke a horse, but Penelope didn’t care. All she cared about was that the odds of them getting out of Turkey, or Iraq, or wherever the hell they were, were just raised about a thousand percent. She would’ve kissed the Special Forces men if she thought it would’ve been appropriate at that moment.

Wolf, apparently done with the pleasantries, got down to business. “First, we left four men down near the crash site of the MH-60. Any chance you took care of that?”

“Taken care of,” Ghost said matter-of-factly. He didn’t elaborate, and Penelope really would’ve liked to have known more about how they were doing and what was going on with them, but obviously now wasn’t the time.

Wolf nodded at Ghost. “Obliged.” He continued with the sit rep, “We repelled the first round of insurgents, but expect another any moment. We holed up down there,” he gestured back the way they came, “but they obviously found us. We’re down to a few clips per person. Abe has a leg wound that needs more medical attention than we’ve got. My arm is busted. Mozart has an arm wound, but it doesn’t seem to be too bad. Benny had a concussion and some bleeding and Dude’s ankle isn’t a hundred percent.”

“And Tiger?” Ghost’s words were no-nonsense and clipped.

“Dehydration, hungry, bent ribs, and tough as fucking hell.”

Ghost nodded in approval. “Good to know the odds are in our favor.”

Penelope gawked at the huge man. Was he high? Wolf had just run through enough issues to make any general cringe, and the dangerous looking man standing in front of her acted as if Wolf had told him they had heat-seeking missiles hidden in their packs. She’d never understand these Special Forces guys. Give her a fireman any day of the week. The ones she worked with might be a bit redneck and a lot country, but at least they weren’t fucking crazy.

“Okay, we’ll pair up, one of my men with one of yours. They’ll hook your guys up with additional ammo. Truck and Blade will take Abe. Sergeant Turner, you stick with me and Wolf. You’ll be home before you know it.”

Penelope nodded and stepped away from Abe as the two Delta Force men, Blade and Truck, came forward to take him under their shoulders. Cookie nodded at them with respect and gratitude, and the other men got down to business shifting their loads and distributing ammunition.

Penelope was hunkered down between Wolf and Ghost when the first gunshot rang out through the air.

She flinched and ducked, remembering the firefight that they’d lived through not too long ago.

“Easy, sergeant. We’ve got this,” Ghost reassured her with a hand on her shoulder.

Penelope nodded and waited. Surprisingly, Wolf and Ghost didn’t even pull out their weapons, but spoke to each other about the plans for extraction as their men shot at insurgents around them.

“You call it in?” Wolf asked Ghost.

“Yeah, an MH-47 is en route.”

“Probably best to wait until we take care of this first.”

“Yeah, it’ll be over before the Chinook gets here.”

“From here?”

“Incirlik then Ramstein.”

Wolf nodded in approval. “Good. Any chance you can relay a message back home? Our radios are out. Dead batteries.”

“Of course.”

Wolf leaned toward Ghost and Penelope heard him speaking in what had to be code, because she didn’t understand a word of what was said. She was beginning to get irritated and her head reeled, not only from the extremely loud firefight around them, but from confusion as to what was going on and probably a bit of lack of water and food as well.

“Can one of you please translate what the hell is going on?” she demanded, still feeling snarky. Her world was changing too fast for her to keep up and it was extremely confusing and scary.

Ghost laughed, not meanly. “As soon as our boys take care of the assholes, a big-ass helicopter will come and pick us all up. We’ll fly to Incirlik U.S. Air Base east of here on the Mediterranean Sea. From there, you’ll probably be packed up and shipped off to Ramstein Air Base in Germany. There, you and Wolf’s men will get medical attention, then you’ll all be headed home.”

“Home?” The word soaked into Penelope’s psyche like a parasite burrowing in for the long haul.

“Home,” Ghost confirmed.

Penelope turned to Wolf with a smile. “Can you tell your guys to hurry the hell up then, we have a chopper to catch.”

Wolf smiled down at the petite woman between them. She didn’t come to their chin, was dirty and actually pretty disgusting-smelling and looking, but her strong personality and quirkiness came through loud and clear. She might be down, but she sure as hell wasn’t out.

“Yes, ma’am,” Wolf told her, laughing.

“That’s sergeant, not ma’am. I’m not an officer,” Penelope told Wolf haughtily, but smiled so he knew she was teasing him.

Wolf didn’t answer, but Penelope knew he heard her.

And Ghost was right, it wasn’t too much longer before the last gunshot rang out over the mountains. It was almost too quiet. “Is it over?” Penelope whispered into the sudden silence.

“Almost.”

S
tay tuned
for a breaking news story out of Germany on the evening news.

C
aroline lay
on her couch with her cell phone in her hand and stared up at the ceiling. Alabama was upstairs in her bed with Brinique and Davisa. Fiona was sleeping in one of the armchairs next to her, and Summer was in the other chair. They’d made a cradle out of a dresser drawer for April, and she was sleeping soundly next to her mother.

Cheyenne and Julie were downstairs in the basement apartment with Taylor, and Jess was in the guestroom with both Sara and John. They were certainly crowded, but not one of the women wanted to be anywhere else.

The kids were resilient and thought it was fun to have a sleepover. Caroline and Fiona had taken Melody and Akilah to the airport the day before. It was always sad to say goodbye to her. Even though she lived on the other side of the country, Melody was still very much a part of their group.

Caroline fingered the cell phone impatiently. She hadn’t slept well at all, she had a feeling something was happening. She had no factual basis for the feeling, but it was there nonetheless.

Having the Navy say that Matthew and the other men were “missing,” was tough. It was one thing to say goodbye to Matthew every time he left for a mission and not know where he was going or when he’d be back, but she and the other women knew that
someone
knew where they were and what they were doing. But this time, not even the U.S. Navy knew their whereabouts, and that was what freaked her out the most.

Was he hurt? Was anyone else hurt? Caroline refused to believe Matthew was dead. Absolutely refused. As she’d told Commander Hurt, she’d have to see and touch his dead body to believe it…something many SEAL wives never got to do.

Even though Caroline was hoping and praying her phone would ring, she was startled when it actually did vibrate in her grasp. The number came up as “unavailable,” but Caroline didn’t hesitate to swing her legs over the side of the couch and head into the kitchen and the side door of the house. She didn’t want to wake anyone up, but she had a good feeling in her gut about the call.

Caroline eased the door shut behind her and clicked the phone to answer it before the person on the other end hung up.

“Hello?”

“Ice, it’s me.”

“Oh thank God! Are you all right? Is everyone else okay?” She could hear the smile in Matthew’s voice as he answered her.

“That’s my Ice, always worrying about others. We’re good.”

“Does the commander know where you are? He said you were MIA.”

Wolf laughed outright. Caroline had been a Navy spouse for a couple of years now, but she still sometimes was very naïve about how things worked. “Of course he knows, Baby.”

“Okay. Can I ask when you guys will be home?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I promise it’ll be soon.”

“Good. Matthew?”

“Yeah, Ice?”

“Can I tell the others?”

“Of course. I told the guys I’d call you. Make sure the others know they’ll call as soon as they can, but we’ve got meetings and stuff we gotta do at the moment.”

“I know, I’ll tell them. You really are okay?”

Wolf heard the break in his wife’s voice and actually felt tears well up in his own eyes. He was a bad-ass SEAL, but nothing could bring him to his knees faster than his Caroline. “We’re all going to be fine.”

There was a huge difference in Caroline’s mind, but she didn’t push it. Right now,
going
to be fine was just as good as fine. “Okay, we’ll see you at the base?”

“Probably not. We have to debrief with Hurt and others before we’ll be allowed to come home. It’ll probably be a couple of days, but I’ll text when I’m on my way.”

“Okay. Matthew?”

Wolf grinned again. “Yes, Ice?”

“Did you win?”

He knew exactly what she meant and he was proud as fuck that he was able to say, “Yeah, baby. We won.”

“Thank God. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“I knew you’d find your way home.”

“Always. I’ve got you to come home to. How could I not?”

“Okay, I’m sure you have shit to do.” Caroline’s voice was back to its usual take-charge tone. “I’ve got six adults, two toddlers, two babies and two little girls who are going to be getting up any moment now, and will be hungry. Travel safe and I’ll see you soon, honey.” She could’ve gone into detail about baby Taylor and Cheyenne’s hospital scare and about Jess being pregnant again, but decided her husband had enough on his plate at the moment. Faulkner and the others would learn soon enough all that happened while they were gone. They’d call their wives as soon as they could. It was enough for now that they weren’t lost anymore and would be home soon.

“Yes, you will. Stay safe until I get home.”

“I will. Love you, bye.”

“Bye, Ice.”

Caroline clicked off the phone and dropped her head and sighed in relief. Thank God.