Talon: Combat Tracking Team (A Breed Apart) (6 page)

Cardinal read the e-mail again.

“Not quite the response you expected, huh?” Smith said.

“No, it’s not.” Cardinal patted his shoulder. “It’s better.” He started for Burnett’s office.

“Better?”

“Get me on the next flight to Austin.” Cardinal folded the paper and rounded the corner.

“Huh? But why? She just said—”

“I’ll need a team prepped for Djibouti. We’ll need to alert Kuhn we’re headed his way.” Cardinal carded himself through to the offices of General Burnett and a couple of other four-stars.

From the admin’s desk, Cardinal looked through the glass pane and held up a hand to Burnett, who waved him in as he talked on the phone.

He leaned in and held up the paper. “She contacted. We’re a go.”

Holding up one finger, Burnett spoke quietly into his phone. So quietly Cardinal couldn’t hear him. But he could read his lips.
Let me take care of it. I know…no, he’s not a loose cannon. I can—yes, sir
.

“Problem, sir?”

With a disgusted sigh, the general shook his head. “Always a problem.”

Cardinal thumped the e-mail with a finger. “She made contact. I’m on my way up to the Lone Star state.”

“Actually, you’re not.”

Heat spilled down Cardinal’s spine as Burnett hung up. He said nothing. Just waited. It always worked better.

“That was General Payne.”

A royal
pain
in the backside. Also Chief of Staff of the Army. Burnett’s boss’s boss. Cardinal knew where this was going. They never approved of the general using him for operations. They questioned his loyalty. Questioned his motives.

Well, one they had no need to question. The other was his business alone.

“Approval for the Djibouti mission has been rejected.”

“On what grounds?”

“Nigeria.”

Cardinal smothered his reaction. “Unbelievable.” He jerked his head down. Looked to the side. Closed his eyes. Then glanced at Burnett. “We have her and that dog. I put eyes on the target. He’s down there. We have to go down there and get him out. If we don’t—”

Burnett held up a hand. “I know. And so does Payne. They’re sending a team—”

“They send anyone who smells like American military down there, the hounds of hell are going to rip out their hearts. Then you’ll lose him for good.”

Blue eyes held his. “Son, this is not my first rodeo and you’re not Cardinal, god of the spy sea.”

The terse words pulled Cardinal off balance. The general had never snarled at him like that. Which meant one of two things: Burnett agreed with Payne, or Burnett was ticked off, too.

Either way, his mission just got tanked. Austin’s life had been put in dire straits.

There was no battle to fight here. Payne tied Burnett’s hands. Which cut off Cardinal’s limbs. And possibly severed the heart of a family—the Courtland’s.

Not that they’d ever know their son had been abandoned by their country.

Aspen already knows that
. She just didn’t have the right definition to MIA: Presumed Dead. To her, it meant they couldn’t find a body. Cardinal knew the truth—the U.S. buried the body with its complacency and bureaucracy. He respected laws and procedures.

They defined civilizations, prevented collapses.

They also crippled civilizations. Initiated collapses.

He’d seen it too many times. Cardinal gave a nod of surrender. Gritted his teeth, then turned for the door.

“Cardinal.”

He opened the door and dragged his attention back to where it did not want to go.

“Don’t.”

A smile almost made it to his face.

“I mean it.” Burnett leaned forward, rested his arms on his desk. “That very propensity to go rogue is why you got benched. Let them handle this.”

“Of course.”

“I mean it. I’d hate to see you fly off without his stamp of approval,” Burnett said. “Then get down there and need help. They’d be all over my hide.” A smile twinkled behind the terse words. “I’d have to send my very best after you to drag your sorry hide back here.”

Cardinal stared at the general. The man who’d taken him under his wing, guided him, honed his skills, taught him things, learned things from Cardinal…and always, always saw things the same way Cardinal did.

“Understood.”

“Good gravy, girl.”

Aspen eyed her friend as they headed into Amadore’s, assaulted at once with the thick odor of sweat and BO wafting toward them. “What?”

“You only e-mailed him two days ago. What do you expect? He was in DC, for crying out loud. For him to drop everything and come up here?”

Bristling at her best friend’s wisdom, Aspen strode back to the women’s locker room, which wasn’t more than a converted broom closet with a shower well. “He’s military. He’ll get it. If he was with Austin, then he was a Green Beret.”

“Girl, I don’t know. I couldn’t find record of that.”

“You’re an investigative reporter, Britt, not the FBI. Records like his would be blacked out or concealed.” It was a stretch, but hey, it made her feel better.

Brittain Larabie tossed her bag onto the bench. “What if he doesn’t come?”

Aspen turned to her friend. “We went over all of that with the others before I e-mailed him at your condo.”

“Yeah,” Brittain said, with a roll of her head. “And if I remember, not everyone thought it was a good idea to bring this guy into the plan. In fact, Timbrel said you were digging a grave. And Darci says this man’s psych profile showed a lethal dedication to his career. She’s not convinced he’s right. I was with this guy an hour and he never smiled. I mean—creepy! And—”

“Enough!” Aspen thrust her hands into her hair and tied it back with black elastic as she met Brittain’s gaze in the mirror. “We
need
him—he was there with Austin the day of the attack.” Yanking the zipper on her bag, she felt the tension tangling her mind and thoughts. “He knows what happened. Maybe I’ll have enough to file an appeal or something with the judge advocate. General Gray and his wife still invite me to their Christmas parties. They like me. Maybe he’ll listen.”

“Yeah, and maybe the Easter Bunny will deliver a gold egg.”

Aspen glared at her friend. “I don’t need your negativity—”

“It’s not neg—”

“I know. It’s the facts.
Negative
facts, I’d point out.”

Britt let her shoulders sag in an exaggerated way. “What about Austin’s fire buddy? He said he doesn’t remember this guy.”

Aspen rolled her eyes. “Will was a player whose loyalties were with himself.” She sighed. “As much as I don’t want to put my last hope in this Mar-whatever guy, I will take him over Will any day.” When she’d hit S
END
on that letter, a thread of hope stitched up her broken, angry heart. She plunged her hand into the bag and drew out her wrist wraps.

Warm hands cupped her shoulders, drawing Aspen’s gaze from the yellow wraps she secured around her palm and wrist. Compassion oozed from the milk chocolate eyes.

“No.” Aspen stepped back. “Don’t do that.” She snatched the gloves from the bench and strode into the gym, acutely aware how much her best friend wanted to apply the brakes to this before they got started. But Aspen couldn’t—
wouldn
’t—let Austin’s name end up on some memorial wall. He wasn’t dead. She could feel it.

Or…could she?

It’d only been in the wee hours of the morning as she wept over his disappearance that she wondered if their twin connection was still alive. Was he still alive?

Batting the gloves into a better fit, she crossed the open floor, passed the free weights, the ellipticals, and treadmills. At the speed bag, she warmed up. When a slow burn radiated through her muscles, she started for the ring.

Mario straightened as she passed, stilling the kickboxing bag he’d just struck. He grinned. “Hey, beautiful. Ready for more?”

Slipping in her mouth guard, she arched an eyebrow at him.

He whooped.

As she reached for the ropes to step in, Amadore, ghostlike man that he was, appeared out of nowhere. “You with us today, Angel?”

With more conviction than she felt, she nodded.

He pointed to Mario. “You hurt her, you answer to me.”

Smiling, she nudged his shoulder then bent through the ropes. She strode toward the center and met her opponent. All six feet of the man towered over her five-foot-five frame. Muscles rippled beneath his dark skin as those eyes—Timbrel called them lady-killers—sparkled back at her. In the center, she bumped gloves with Mario, their official start signal.

He threw the first punch, launching them into a rigorous workout. Though they were well matched, he always seemed determined to bring her down. She enjoyed the challenge. Much like this new venture of hers—finding her brother. Bringing him back. Darci insisted Aspen had gone one too many rounds in the ring and incurred T
BI
traumatic brain injury, to attempt this. But like Aspen, Darci’s mind and heart raced at the thought of doing something everyone else said they couldn’t.

Would the guy come? Though she wasn’t a former intelligence operative like Darci or a borderline Mensa like Khaterah, Aspen had been gifted with an insatiable thirst for truth and justice. But without this guy, without Dane Whatshisname—who named their kid after a dog, anyway?—she could hang up this plan. He had been there. He knew her brother. Knew the location. The terrain. And he still had connections with the military. Desperately needed connections to get them in and out of Afghanistan. Besides, going in with a team of men alone…well, even Aspen wasn’t that stupid.

Black slammed into her face with a resounding thud.

Aspen spun away, stumbling.

Mario cursed.

“Hey,” Amadore’s shout sailed through the cavernous, split-level gym. “What’d you do?”

“Nothin’,” Mario said.

Aspen sniffled, smelling and tasting the metallic glint of blood. She wiped the warmth from her upper lip and sneered at Mario. “You’ll pay,” she mumbled around her guard.

Mario grinned, but even beneath that she saw uncertainty as he darted a gaze to Amadore, who loomed over the front counter, his face aflame. “I warned you, Mario. You hurt her—”

Aspen threw a right cross at the distracted man.

His hand flew up and blocked. He angled to the side and countered.

Her mind had left the ring, and that’d cost her some blood. She wouldn’t make the mistake again. And now, she had to pay back this player. Besides, she was tired of Amadore protecting her. The men here needed to know she could hold her own. If she’d proven that in Iraq, she could do it at Amadore’s Fight Club, too.

Tracking him around the ring, she deflected several aggressive—and stupid—moves. Mario was running on his victory. He’d die on it, too.

He raised his knee—she shifted, turned slightly, and rammed her elbow down on the meaty part.

Mario flinched and dropped his guard.

Aspen threw a hard right. And connected.

His head snapped back, but he was already in motion. A left jab. Right. Light glinted off the glass-front door—the glare flared across Mario’s face. Then Aspen’s. Both looked toward the front, ready to holler at whoever had forgotten to pull the curtain to prevent such a distraction.

“Hey,” Mario shouted. “The bwind.” His mouth guard made him sound like he had rocks in his mouth.

“Sorry, sorry”—Luke, the new hire, rushed and secured the curtain. The streaming sunlight wreathed a tall, muscular figure before the light vanished. Aspen blinked, and when her gaze hit the reception desk in the open-area gym, she froze.

    Four