Sanctuary 02 - The Only Easy Day (CMS) (MM) (12 page)

" Jake Callahan? Who is he?"

"A nice guy with a lot of money. He'd founded Sanctuary, said he needed good men. I told him I wasn't so sure on the good part, but hey, there was no freaking way the Navy was going to trust my shit emotions in the field. I was at loose ends and had the need to do something, anything, itching under my skin."

"I know that feeling."

"He just said he was there to help. Good guy. That was what… three years ago? I worked on my own, then over a year ago, I was partnered with this new guy, Nik Valentinov. The rest, as they say, is history."

They subsided into companionable silence, and

Dale watched the rain sheet down. The overhang created a wall of water as the rain collected and dived from the stone.

It was as if they were totally alone in the world.

After about a half an hour, Joseph spoke again. "So. The bathroom." His voice startled Dale, who'd been staring mindlessly at the rain.

"Bathroom?"

"Back at the house. I followed you in there, and I swear the look of you in that mirror…" Joseph wriggled a bit, and with some maneuvering, he had his pants open and his hands down on his dick. Blood left Dale's head so fast he felt dizzy and was hard as freaking steel in the space of seconds. 

"What are you—"

"I was sitting here thinking." Joseph moved some more and pushed his pants aside a little more. The tip of his dick was visible over the dark material as was his hand that was moving subtly up and down his length.

"Thinking?" Jeez. His brain needed oxygen, but his breath had been stolen. Joseph Kinnon, hard man, dressed in black from head to toe with his hand working his dick, was possibly the most erotic thing Dale had ever seen. He could imagine bending his head, leaning over, and licking, sucking, the dick being revealed as more material moved.

"What the fuck, Kinnon?"

"Don't tell me you haven't done this before in barracks."

"What…" Dale was in shock. Of course sexual relief could be found in the strangest of places but never in front of a member of his team.

"I would love to suck you. Will you let me?" Wait.

Joseph was asking to suck him? No bloody way… not until… wait. They were on a mountain in the middle of freaking nowhere, and Joseph was offering something Dale was never going to have again. Uncomplicated getting off with a hot hero. Oh yeah, he could get with the act.

"Nuh huh, me first" was all Dale could pull together, and in seconds, he had his hands on Joseph's hips and was pulling him firmly away from the wall of their stone shelter. He didn't want this on stony ground, and he pushed and pulled the waterproof material he had wrapped around himself and laid it down before manhandling Joseph to lay on it. Joseph grunted at the movement and swore as Dale knocked his hand away from his own leaking dick.

Forcing the pants lower, Dale finally had what he wanted, the strong Navy SEAL exposed to his gaze and his touch.

The taste of him, the texture, and the weight was perfect. It had been too long since he had this pleasure, and his own dick, hard against his pants, was threatening to rub itself to peak without even leaving his pants. With the rhythm he set, the suction of his mouth, and his hand a counterpoint of pressure and release, he had Joseph begging under his touch.

"Fuck…" was all Joseph could say. That and a whole litany of impressive curses that Dale marked up for future use. "Too long…" Joseph keened the words and lifted his hips. The move pushed his dick deeper into Dale's mouth, but Dale wasn't letting Joseph set the speed of this.

Pulling back, he removed his mouth and looked up to meet Joseph's needy gaze.

"No moving, sailor," he murmured. "I'll get you there."

"Fuck…"

He concentrated on the neglected dick that lay hard and glistening against Joseph's belly. Dale squirmed at the thought of the length of it pounding him, Joseph forcing him flat on the ground. Fuck. He was so close to coming just from the image and the erotic thoughts in his head. He returned to sucking and licking, and in seconds, Joseph was mumbling incoherent pleas and finally arching with a shouted warning. Dale pulled away at the last second, watching as Joseph lost it hot and hard against his own stomach with a groan of completion.

"Fifteen months, two weeks, and a day," Joseph muttered. He swiped at the cooling mess on his skin with his fingers.

"What?" Dale was trying to will away his orgasm, but when Joseph moved with the agility of a bloody cat and had him pinned to the ground, it was game over.

Fumbling to get his dick out, needing the attention, it took nothing more than a few twists of Joseph's clever hand and the swipe of his tongue against heated flesh and Dale was twisting away and coming hard over his hand.

"Now I can start from one," Joseph said teasingly.

"One for what?" Dale breathed through the sensations that spun through his blood.

"It's been fifteen months, two weeks, and a day since I had a hand on a cock that wasn't my own. Now I can start from one."

Dale let himself relax muscle by muscle into the soil covered with the small tarpaulin and huffed a laugh.

"I can beat that," he finally said. Joseph joined in with a laugh of his own and settled at a ninety-degree angle to Joseph. Companionably he rested his head on Dale's thigh. Nothing had ever felt so good than the reassuring weight of a man against his body.

"When you lie there, and you're all fucked out, it's like the most exquisite peace," Joseph murmured. Dale couldn't help himself, and he snorted his amusement.

Joseph turned his head so he could look up at Dale, who had his hands behind his head.

"You laughing at me?"

"You write poetry in your spare time, sailor?"

"Nah. I just share my insight with guys who suck me off." This time it was Joseph who laughed at his own joke, but Dale winced as something akin to jealousy spread through him. Jeez. Look at him. A mutual masturbation session and he was getting jealous. His emotional balance was well and truly fucked. Thinking on his feet, he knew he had to level this playing field.

"Under that big bad frogman persona is the soul of a poet and the heart of a romantic," he deadpanned.

"Fuck you," Joseph responded.

Dale wondered what Joseph would think if he knew just how much Dale was commenting on what he saw as the truth. 

They waited another few hours after dark had claimed the mountain. Joseph was never happier that the rain had eased off and was now more a mist than a heavy cloak.

Donning night vision goggles, they began the climb down the fifty or so feet that would bring them to the rear of the mansion near the large garage area that housed all the cars.

Dexter's voice was in his ear, and it was the most reassuring sound he had heard in a long time. His team was the other part of him – the vital necessary part that kept him facing in the right direction. Not having them on this op with him left him feeling curiously bereft. What Dale had revealed to him on that rainy slope had left Joseph feeling vulnerable and oddly anxious. Would he have been any different after such an incident? Faced with a bullet passing through a child's head? The blood and the smell and the total devastation? Would it have made him quit his life goals? Would he have taken the sidestep Dale had? He didn't know. His team was his family, and they did good work. Saved lives. It was his calling. It
was
him.

"Joseph?" Dale's voice was little more than a husky whisper.

"Wait," Joseph instructed with a single finger raised in front of him. The connection in his ear with Dex was horribly silent, and for a few seconds, he wondered if they were entering this situation blind. If that was the case, he contemplated saying Dale should stay here and wait for him. He even pictured the scenario, but nothing changed the fact that, apart from tying the other man down, it was unlikely Dale would stay where he was put. Ex-SEAL he might be but he was one determined fucker. Joseph took the waiting time to check terrain. He inched forward to look over the ledge they laid on.

There was security around the entire perimeter, but the jutting rock that forced its way into the garden meant there was a good hundred feet or so of unprotected garden at the bottom of the sheer drop. The ropes were ready and secure. They would hold them safe as they rappelled near soundlessly to the ground.

"Chief?" Dexter's voice had never been more welcome.

"Talk to me, Dex."

"Counting eight security in total. All exterior. One other in bedroom rear, non-moving, and one in same bedroom in movement. Two guards on rotation at your position. You have a one-minute gap where it's possible to go straight through the middle."

"Can you count us down?"

"Losing satellite in ten, Chief. I can count you in, then I'm silent for at least twenty minutes."

"Count us in. We'll take it from there."

"Copy."

Joseph concentrated on his breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Each inhalation was damp water-drenched air, but it was good to settle his thoughts. Dale was behind the next tree looking directly at him, and Joseph made a sign to indicate everything was okay. Dale had slipped back into SEAL mode the instant he had donned the black. What was it he had said when they'd first met? Once a SEAL…?

"Okay, Chief. You can move in ten… nine… eight…" Joseph indicated a five to Dale as soon as Dex reached that milestone, and on the cusp of one, the two men had feet on land within a few seconds and were huddled behind a stand of firs that formed the barrier from the rock to the house. Staying close to the tree line, they made their way past the guards and situated themselves behind the garage.

Pulling his weapon and checking the rounds, he indicated they should move, and as one, they melted into shadows and began their mission.

* * * *

Having only a vague description of two people in a rear bedroom was just one of the barriers to extraction. The other was, for seemingly innocent men, the Bullen family had one hell of a lot of security. Dale counted three at the back and two just inside, and each was dispatched quickly and cleanly and left unconscious on the floor. That was five. Three more were silently rendered unconscious inside the cavernous kitchen. Joseph dealt with two, but Dale hadn't forgotten his training or lost any of his real ability to take men down when necessary. He just pushed past the ache in his side and knees that threatened to lock in pain.

Pain was a weakness, one of the first things they drummed into you during BUD/s.

Back to back, he and Joseph moved down darkened corridors, and not for the first time, Dale wondered how the hell they were going to get this done. The intel on the layout was detailed. There were no cameras that could be seen, no cameras on the house security manifest, and the bedrooms were all on the second floor. Like ghosts, they climbed the first staircase, not the main stairs but a set of concrete steps at the rear of the house.

There was no security on this floor, just an array of doors. For a second, Dale had this image of himself and Joseph opening and closing each door like the evil guy in a bathroom faced with an array of stalls to find the good guy.

They stilled as the sound of shouting echoed through the hall from the last partially opened door on the right. Dale nodded when Joseph indicated he would be moving forward and concentrated on the words from inside the room. Accusations were flying, the raw sounds of both verbal and physical violence loud through the door.

"Have you showed anyone? What did you do with the files?" Joseph was at the door, and Dale sidestepped with his back ninety degrees to Joseph, keeping watch at the rear.

"I didn't—I was studying—"

"I told you he was talking to Elisabeth. Fuck, Greg.

I told you we should have shut him down as soon as he arrived here. He'll need to die. Like Elisabeth."

"Okay. I don't have the stomach for this. You find out what he knows. What he's done."

"I got it Greg. Leave it to me." The words were accompanied by the sound of fists hitting flesh.

"I want names and numbers and when you're finished put his body on the mountain. You could have had it all Robert. All of it." Joseph raised his gun and counted down from three with raised fingers. Dale tensed and followed the countdown with concentration, and on one, Joseph was through the door weapon high with Dale at his back.

The next few seconds passed quickly. Alastair was looming over the boy, a gun in his hand pointed at Robert's head. Robert's face was a mess of blood and tears, and his eyes were swollen half shut. He looked near dead, and this was his dad and his uncle standing there with death in their eyes and violence in fists? Revulsion flooded Dale as he entered the face-off between the two Bullen brothers and Joseph. Only Alastair was armed, but Gregory didn't look any less fierce or dangerous.

Joseph took aim square between Greg's eyes, and Dale aimed directly for Alastair. Alastair had his gun on the blood-soaked Robert. Robert was mumbling, spluttering every syllable as blood filled his mouth, unaware there was anyone else in the room.

"Drop the weapon," Joseph ordered.

"Who the fuck are you?" Alastair asked. Dale couldn't believe the response. What was wrong with Alastair? Did he not recognize the icy determination in Joseph's eyes?
Drop the freaking gun.

"Drop the weapon," Joseph repeated.

Alastair smirked, giving them the smile of the clueless, and moved an inch closer with the barrel of his gun resting on his nephew's temple.

"You first, hero."

"I will shoot you," Joseph said. Dale thought it was probably overkill to actually say the words when intent was obvious in every iron line of Joseph's body.

"I'll kill the boy," Alastair said very simply.

The boy? Not my nephew or Robert, but the boy.

And Greg just stood there. Robert was his son for God's sake. That was a red flag to Dale. Clearly Greg Bullen gave not one ounce of shit for family ties here. They weren't going to be able to use Robert to get Alastair to drop the gun.

What happened next evolved like a page out of a film script, the kind of scene that was played in slow motion so the audience could make sense of each action but, in reality, happened in a flash of confusion and noise.