Code Name: Ghost (A Warrior's Challenge 1) (6 page)

Heated conversations snapped over the
radios, and her insides jumped when the voice of the Commander rose
above the rest. He barked at his team. “Where is she?”

She bit down on her lip. She’d done some
time in the naval reserves before she enlisted. She was a lot
younger then, and was damn good at taking prisoners and keeping
herself out of the wet locker. Those days of agility were gone, and
some mornings she actually felt achy. Time was marching on, and her
thirty-five years were marching across her body with heavy boot
prints. She refused to give in to the thought of arthritis. Even
though she’d had a bit of a rough ride in life, she wasn’t going
down without a thick gulp of denial.

She listened. Luck would have to be on her
side, she’d only have a second to throw open the hatch and then get
to the water. She listened again—silence, but they were probably
doing the same. She stepped carefully across the anchor chain.
Grabbing hold of the cool metal handle, she waited.

Silence.

Eyes would be everywhere. There were eight
or nine of them against her. Ah—no sweat. The next time the
Commander barked an order she’d go.

“Well, what the hell, she’s not a fairy.”
She heard his deep voice bellow at his team.

“Don’t know, Commander, she’s not here.
We’ve searched the entire vessel,” a different voice replied from
the deck above her.

“She’s here,” he boomed back.

She threw back the hatch, grabbing the thick
plated edges of the upper deck and yanked herself out. A SEAL stood
not more than ten feet away.

“Behind you, Tinman,” someone shouted.

She lunged toward the gunwale, and with one
hand heaved herself over the side. Cheers came from Gord, Barry and
the harbor patrol crew as she fell the fifteen or so feet then
sliced through the cool seawater, luckily clearing any RHIBs.

The ocean enveloped her and a storm of salty
bubbles rose with her to the surface. “Whoo-hoo,” she cried out
when she surfaced. Within a second, a RHIB stopped beside her.
Hands clutched her arms, and slid her over the side as if they were
landing a big old halibut, but someone saved her, catching her
before she hit the deck.

Turning onto her hands and knees, she looked
up to see four men gazing at her with black and green grease paint
covering their features. They wore wide brimmed hats, sunglasses,
and bandannas wrapped around their heads. She remembered the movies
she’d seen about Navy SEALs and now she was face to face with them.
How bizarre!

Sitting back on her haunches, she said, “Hey
guys. Looking for me?” Their facial camouflage made them
intimidating, but they were all smiling at her.

The navigator gunned the powerful outboards
once, and the RHIB veered away from the patrol boat as one of the
men spoke into a portable radio. “Snow White’s been captured,” he
reported.

“Captured, my ass,” she said. “I made it to
the water. Your Commander has to pay up.” All the guys chuckled.
“Give me that radio.” He obliged, holding it out to her. “SEAL Team
Commander this is,” She paused, rolling her eyes at the guy who had
coined the name. “Snow White, over.”

The Commander stood on the bow of the ship
with his arms crossed looking down at her. Geared up in fatigues
like his team, he radiated an aura of command, mostly because of
his physique. Long, muscular legs and a massive chest filled his
clothes. Her heart beat heavily. She wasn’t sure if it was
intimidation or something else, the feeling so foreign to her. His
cap hid his dirty blonde hair. At least he had some, compared to
most men she’d seen on the base.

The Commander raised the radio to his lips.
“Go ahead, Snow White.”

“Commander, I believe in the war of 1812 we
Canadians kicked your Yankee butts out, and you haven’t been back
since,” she paused. “There might be a reason for that, over.” His
arrogant comments when they met had made her bristle, time for
payback, in a passive way of course. She winked at the men
surrounding her. The Commander’s head shook and he dropped his
powerful arms to his sides for a moment. Was he laughing? She
doubted it, but it sure looked like it.

“Roger, Snow White. I admit defeat. What
will my surrender cost?” the Commander responded, his voice
carrying a warmer note.

The RHIB team waited, their lips curling,
then one of them said, “Make him pay big time.”

“No, I can’t rub his nose in it, that
wouldn’t be very Canadian of me.” Activating the press-to-talk key,
she said, “Commander, someone owes me a rum, and…I’d like your men
to take me for a ride on this vessel that’ll make my heart patter
like a hail storm.”

Another SEAL walked up beside him, almost as
big as he was. The man leaned into him and said something. The
Commander nodded, raising the portable radio to his mouth. “You
heard her, men, take her for a ride. I doubt you can scare the shit
out of her, but try anyways.”

“Hoo-yah!” chorused the men surrounding
her.

“Guys, you wouldn’t happen to have a dry
shirt, would you? It’s actually bloody cold out here.” Before she
could even turn, a sand-colored camouflage shirt dangled in front
of her. “Okay,” she drawled, unable to subdue a grin. The SEAL with
pearly white teeth and dark smiling eyes had taken his own shirt
off to give to her. Bulging muscles cascaded across his chest and
rippled down to his taut, sculpted waist.
Holy crap.
“Turn
around. All of you.” She narrowed a look on him. He swept a jacket
up and surrounded her in it.

“Eyes front,” he ordered, and they obeyed,
while she wiggled out of her wet shirt, replacing it with the camo
shirt that skirted her thighs.

“All right, gentlemen, show me what you can
do,” she ordered, rolling up the sleeves draped well past her
fingers.

The RHIB turned toward open water and the
helmsman put the paddles down. Wedged in one of only two seats
shaped like a saddle, the wind hit her full on with the powerful
outboards sending them above the waves, and churning the water
astern of them. When the helmsman cranked the wheel, the tight turn
was enough to throw just about anyone into the drink, and her
thighs clutched the seat she straddled, but she still had to grab
the bare shoulder of the SEAL sitting next to her on the deck. With
a gentle but firm hand, he stabilized her. They ripped through the
sparkling water of the bay, dodging a few other military vessels on
exercise. Eventually, they returned to the dock at the same time
the harbor patrol boat threw her lines to the pier.

“Thanks men, that was awesome.”

“You’re welcome, ma’am,” a SEAL with the
name Briggs on his pocket piped up.

“Any time, Snow White,” another guy with
chestnut blond hair and sharp blue eyes, shouted. They’d called him
Tinman, and he’d almost caught her on the vessel.

“Oh, God, that’s not going to stick, is
it?”

The SEAL with pearly whites and a bare,
rock-hard torso winked at her. “Think so, ma’am.”

She eyed him with her cheeks puckering. “I
think you should be calling me mom not ma’am,” she said, accepting
his hand before jumping to the oiled timbers of the wharf.

Gord and Barry jumped to the wharf from the
patrol vessel. Sauntering up the dock, she swung around to give the
SEALs a quick wave goodbye. The Commander and the other dark-haired
SEAL stood on the forward deck watching her. She couldn’t keep the
grin from her lips after kicking the Commander’s arrogance in the
shins. Kayla didn’t miss the low, sexy chuckle as she passed, or
the way it unsettled her.

Kayla and her trainer, John, sat at the
console rehashing some geography as the end of the dayshift neared.
A week had already flown by since the fam trip. The phone rang and
John answered it. “Okay, sir.” Hanging up, he said, “Captain wants
to see you.”

“Roger that, you got this?”

“Yup, looks like a bit of a busy stint
coming up, don’t let the old guy talk too much. He likes to do
that, tell you his old war stories. I want you to work this, so get
back here.”

“No problem.”

She leaned in the open door and tapped on
it. “Captain?”

“Kayla, come, and close the door.”

Close the door?
She hated close the
door discussions. Approaching, she saw the Commander buried in
paperwork.

“Kayla, have a seat,” Captain Redding
offered.

“Thank you, sir.”

Redding leaned forward and gave her his
usual warm smile. “I hear you had a successful familiarization trip
with a little excitement thrown in.”

“Yes sir, it was…ah, fun.” What the hell. It
was
fun.

He reached for a file and said, “Apparently
you’re very good at tactical evasion as well as tactical
communications.”

“Well, I mean one woman against eight SEALs,
those are no odds at all.” A chuckle erupted from the other desk.
Her heart stopped in her chest and the smile slid from her lips
like something gooey on a hot hood. The thump of her pulse pushed
away everything else, seeing a rare smile on the Commander’s face.
As her smile disintegrated so did the Commander’s.

Redding cleared his throat. The Commander
rose from his chair. Muscles flexed beneath his neatly ironed white
shirt, pulling it taut. Daunting was a simpleton’s word to describe
the man who approached her with controlled strength pulsing and a
noble step. She’d hoped to have gotten used to him, like an
overused headline on day old news.

“Well done, Snow White.” He reached out his
hand to her.

She grasped it, and it swallowed hers whole.
“Sir?”

“Something tells me I should put you on the
team. I didn’t know Canadians were so agile and sly,” the Commander
said, releasing her hand, too slowly.

Fierce eyes locked on hers. Instead of
letting him strip her bare, she turned to Captain Redding. “You
wanted to talk to me, sir?”

“I did. I wanted to say congratulations.
John says you’re ready to fly solo.”

“No, sir.”

The Captain’s eyes widened with
surprise.

“Sir, I’ve done this for a long time,” she
assured him. “I’ll know when I’m ready. I’m weak in American
policy, there are still some areas that need tightening up.”

The Captain glanced in a file folder, and
shook his head. “John doesn’t seem to think so.”

“I do. I know my weaknesses,” she admitted,
her heart paddling at a hundred miles an hour knowing the Commander
watched her.

“What do you think it’s going to take?” the
Captain asked, laying his hand flat on the desk.

“Two more weeks, maybe. I’d like more time
to run over the org charts again, which I’m doing at home. This
base has so many departments, whether military or extended
agencies, and I want to know those thoroughly.”

Captain Redding shot a look in the
Commander’s direction. “What do you think, Ghost? Should I let her
go on her own? I think she’s probably being too hard on
herself.”

She twisted to see the Commander burning her
with a look, one she couldn’t describe, but she could feel it.

“I think she can assess herself quite well.
I’d give her what she wants.”

“Two more weeks then, but your partners Gord
and Barry are already planning drinks with the guys to celebrate
graduation tonight.”

What had the Captain said? The Commander’s
statement,
I’d give her what she wants
, made her pause. It
wasn’t the words. It was the tone. “Sorry, sir?”

“Gord and Barry are graduating today, but
I’ll give you two more weeks.” Redding closed the file on his desk
and eyed her with a doubtful expression.

“Have you warned her?” the Commander
asked.

“No, not yet.”

Crossing her legs and clasping her knees,
she gave the Captain her attention. “Warning, sir?” She didn’t like
the sound of that, and the Commander’s tone had fallen back to
serious.

A look of concern crossed both the men’s
faces. Redding breathed out heavily. “Kayla, have you heard of our
troubles here on base?”

The Blood Shark headlines in the base
newspaper shot to her mind, “Actually I have, if you’re speaking
about the serial killer.”

“I want you to be careful, Kayla,” Redding
warned in a fatherly way.

“I know, I’m right in his hot zone,
brunette, thirties—he must have something against his mother.”

The Commander placed himself in front of
her, leaning against the Captain’s desk. For a moment he surveyed
her, then put one knee to the floor so they were eye to eye. “This
isn’t a joke, Ms. Banks.”

“I realize that, Commander, but I’m sure
they’re working hard to find him.” Her heart flew off into the
atmosphere without getting clearance from her brain, the man was so
close to her.

“They are, but until they do, you need to be
careful. They think he’s working here on the base, and that means
access to all the women on it.” His voice softened to a low timbre.
“Don’t walk alone. Don’t put yourself in a vulnerable
position.”

“I’ll be fine, Commander, besides, he only
hunts beaut…Thank you for the concern, sir.”

“Looks like the guys are clearing out for
the day. Are you going to join them?” the Captain asked, pushing
away from his desk.

“I have to work for another hour or so.” She
turned and saw Gord and Barry’s instructors shaking their hands,
and more of the Base Command guys stroll in, no doubt to join them
for a drink. She felt comfortable with them all, but she trumped
all of them in age. Her brows tightened. “I think I’ll just—”

“It’s custom to put one back with the
graduates. Captain Redding and I are going. Some of my team will be
joining us as well.” The Commander squared a gaze on her. “At
times, their lives will depend on you, Ms. Banks. You should know
who they are.”

The Commander was right. “Fine, one then.”
She glanced up at him, but quickly put her attention back on
Captain Redding. Only one, she thought—a very quick one.