Talon: Combat Tracking Team (A Breed Apart) (27 page)

E
luding the National Army was one thing. Deceiving guerillas tough, but they’d managed. Escaping a tracking dog…

Hands on the table, Neil glanced at Lina in the old warehouse they’d taken shelter from the heat in. They’d survived two days without tipping off anyone. It’d been good. Reassuring. But the information—
augh!
What good did it do to have proof when he had nobody to show it to?

Lina folded her arms. She’d been impatient with him the last twenty-four hours. He couldn’t blame her though. Not exactly ideal circumstances. “What are we going to do?”

“We go on.”

Her blue eyes widened against her beautiful olive skin. “Go on?”

She took a step forward, her hand on her stomach. “But they’ll find us.

I ran
right
into her. What if—?”

“No ifs. They won’t. We won’t let them.”

“This isn’t a small army we’re talking about, Neil. The Americans are the best, the most highly trained.” Her long black hair hung over her shoulders. “If we don’t get out of here now, we’ll never make it.”

“Do you think I’m so weak I can’t make this work?”

She came to him and held his arm. “No, I just don’t want to lose you. Or die trying to get this information to the right people. It’s not worth it.”

He thrust his hands up, tossing off her grip. “Don’t you get it? That’s just it!” He paced the abandoned warehouse. Dust bobbed on thin beams of light that poked through the slots and holes in the walls. So numerous, it reminded him of one of those orbs that cast constellations on ceilings. “If we don’t finish this, if we don’t make good—we’re dead. Whether we’re here or somewhere else, they will find us.”

“Maybe they won’t.”

He fisted both hands and thumped them against his forehead. “How can you be so brilliant and so stupid at the same time?”

She drew back, her face awash with his crushing words.

He hated the way she looked at him, with that complete look of trust, believing he could do anything, including taking on world powers and dark, dangerous undergrounds. He’d stepped into a trap of a situation and had been fighting and on the run since. But how…
how
did they keep finding him? He hadn’t been tagged, the way some operatives were. He’d been too new. His mentor told him to avoid it at all costs. Best advice he’d been given.

“Wait…make good?”

Neil wanted to curse himself.

“Make good on what?”

“Nothing. Let’s just…”

That dog…that incredible, stupid dog. As long as they were in town, he’d be found. That had to be how they kept spotting him. Tracking him. Okay, that explained the Americans, but what about the other authorities? It didn’t make sense.

What if he could eliminate the threat? Killing the dog nauseated him. But it was either the Lab or him.

“I need to put something into play.” His mind whirred with the idea. “We’ll hole up in one of the abandoned buildings. I think…I think I know how to get that handler off my scent.”

It seemed there was only one way out: death.

But it wouldn’t be his death. Or Lina’s.

It’d be theirs. Starting with that dog.

A low rumble erupted into a snapping bark.

Cardinal’s gut clinched. Talon had gone primal on Watterboy, who had a hand clamped around Aspen’s mouth. Hackles raised, the dog lowered his front end—he’d pounce any second.

“Release her—the dog!” Cardinal shouted.

The danger must’ve registered because Watterboy released her and stepped back.

“Talon, out! Out!” Short of breath and a little pale, Aspen straightened her T-shirt as she let Talon sniff her hand. She met Cardinal’s gaze and gave a short nod. “Thanks.”

“That was some kind of muffed up…,” a lanky soldier said, his M4 propped over his chest, one hand on the butt. “That dog was going to take a chunk out of your—”

“Hey,” Candyman slapped the guy in the gut, “watch your language.”

“No harm intended.” Watterboy shot an apologetic look at Aspen. “I was afraid you’d cry out. We didn’t need that kind of attention.”

Something twisted sideways in Cardinal when Watterboy manhandled Aspen into submission in the darkened building. The soldier whispered something to her, she nodded, then he released her. Also dressed in camo and a flak vest, Timbrel went to her friend.

But Cardinal saw the disquiet clouding Aspen’s face. Saw the confusion that still clung to her. “Give her room,” he said, feeling a surge of protectiveness. “Let her get her bearings.” He touched her arm. “You okay?”

She swallowed and gave him a quick nod. “Surprised me, that’s all.”

“I couldn’t warn you. When I spotted the signal, we were in the open. You did good.” Cardinal turned to the captain. “What’ve you got?”

He waved a hand as he and five others headed to the rear and climbed a flight of stairs. “Burnett contacted and said things are still a go. But he said to be on our guard.”

“About?” Cardinal hustled up the stairs pocked with bullet holes and peeling plaster. He rounded the rail, glancing down to the floor below. Hogan filled Aspen in on mundane things.

“Your missionary, Courtland, and this.” Palms spread and arms stretched over the table that took up one side of a large open room, Watterboy stared up through his brow.

A political map of the area bore
Xs
and a few circles. In his quick purview, Cardinal knew things were heating up. What worried him was the squiggly line separating Djibouti from Somalia. It’d been marked up with numbers and a series of hyphenated digits. Lat-long indicators.

“What’s happening here?” He looked at Watterboy.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. There’s been a buildup of fighters in recent months. DIA intercepted a phone conversation…” Droning on about the intelligence reports, Watterboy planted his hands on his belt. “But right now, Burnett wants us out here.” He pressed his fingertip to a barren area about two klicks out.

“What’s there?” Her voice had lost its quiver as Aspen came and stood beside him.

“It’s a village. On familiar terms with your dear missionary friend.”

“Why are we going there?” Aspen asked.

“Because,” Watterboy said as he tugged out some photos from a manila envelope that sat beneath the map and spread them out, “UAV snapped these about two nights ago.”

Leaning forward, Cardinal sorted through the photos from the unmanned aerial vehicle. Arranged them in an order that seemed to portray the layout of the village. A truck. Two men. A dozen villages. “Armed.” That wasn’t good. Not unusual in these parts where you negotiated a cup of goat’s milk with an AK-47 on your back.

“DIA is working to ID the two men. The truck is driven by Somalis. We believe they’re the same pirates who hijacked a shipping barge last week.”

Cardinal met Watterboy’s gaze. “And what was on that barge?”

“Weapons. Hundreds of them.”

“Why would anyone be shipping weapons?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out.” Watterboy grinned, his hazel eyes gleaming. “Right after we destroy the weapons.”

“How’s the honeymoon?” Candyman needed to be punched.

Aspen shifted. “So, we’re headed to the village?”

“Roger,” Watterboy said. “We’re going to rendezvous with a medical detachment from Lemonnier and go in under the ruse of a welfare visit. They’ll have a couple of nurses and doctors pass out goodies and deliver much-needed meds. Our contact there is Souleiman Hamadou, a Somali sultan—or at least he thinks he is. Most of the village sultans are overruled by the Djiboutian government, but out in the desert—”

“Out of sight, out of mind?” Having spent a little time there before things went south, Cardinal held a haunting awareness of the poverty that gripped the land.

“Pretty much.” Watterboy shifted around, grabbed two bags, and tossed them over the table. “Suit up. We bug out in fifteen.”

ACUs and body armor waited in the kit bag. “Weapons?”

Candyman shot another grin at him. “Right here.” He pointed to a long box.

“Here, you can have some privacy in this room,” Timbrel said to Aspen, and they headed off.

Waiting till he heard a door shut or their voices faded enough, he turned to Watterboy. “What aren’t you telling me?”

The seasoned combat veteran betrayed nothing with his face or body language.

Muscles tightening, Cardinal eased closer. “Let me be painfully clear with you gentlemen. Nobody cares more about this mission than me.”

“Aspen might disagree.”

“If she knew what I did, no, she wouldn’t.” Lips tight, he glared at them. “If I so much as get a whiff that you’re going to stiff me—”

“This isn’t about stiffing you.” Watterboy tucked his helmet on. “And the clock is ticking. We pull out with or without you. This is a favor, briefing you. Take it or leave it.”

Cardinal ripped off his shirt, stuffed it in the bag, and lifted out the brown T-shirt. Threading his arms through it, he vowed to make sure he never let his guard down from now on.

A whistle carried through the battered room. “Those’re some scars.”

Ignoring Candyman, Cardinal slipped on the ACU jacket and body-armor vest. He strapped himself up with the knee and elbow guards.

“You do that like you know them.”

Were they complete idiots? Or hadn’t they read his files? No…they were just needling him. They knew very well he spent months in Afghanistan with Courtland. He may not have been career, his stint in the line of combat—officially—might have been short, but he was no stranger to playing this role. And part of that role meant knowing how.

Shirt tucked, he ran a hand through his hair and pivoted to ODA452, who were so tense, so alert to his every move, it was a wonder someone didn’t accidentally shoot him. “Weapons.”

“For your leg holster.” Watterboy handed over a Glock. Then he passed an M4A1 and a mic/earpiece.

Tucking the piece in, he heard Talon returning.

Aspen came around the corner, adjusted her vest as she muttered something to Timbrel. The ring sparked on a beam of light.

“Take off the ring,” Cardinal said. “You’ll be a hot target with that.”

“And without it, you’ll be a hot target for every unsuspecting male.”

Timbrel glared at Candyman.

“Hey, I’m not unsuspecting.”

Aspen tugged off the ring, slipped it into a pocket, and then her gaze lingered…on him. Traveled down his frame then back to his face. “You have weapons.”

“So will you.”

“Only a Glock,” she said as she turned to Watterboy. “I can’t handle anything bigger when I have Talon on lead, and I assume that’s part of why we’re going—so Talon can track. But you do know, he’s not trained for explosives or weapons.”

“That’d be Beo.” Timbrel winked.

“Understood. No worries. Burnett wants you on-site, you’re on-site.” She had found her courage. And her groove.

And he liked it. “We should go.”

At times, Dane stood like an impenetrable fortress. That was 98 percent of the time. The other 2 percent, she saw…something. Not quite vulnerability. The thought made her want to laugh. That man, vulnerable? Not in a million years. Scared? Of what? She had this feeling he could take care of himself—and anyone else who messed with him. And that whole thing when he’d intercepted the situation before Talon took a chunk out of Watters’s arm or throat—brilliant. It made her heart swell because he’d been attuned to her, to Talon. Few had ever gotten to that place. It’d taken her months to get there with Talon as his handler.