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“What?”
“Hush.”
Chas fell silent and heard the faintest of sound coming from Gunner’s earpiece. Someone was speaking on the radio frequency Gunner was monitoring.
“Gotta go,” Gunner bit out.
“What’s happening?”
“Spence and Dray have company. They need me to help out.”
“Where are they?”
“In the woods above the motel. They’ve got five tangoes moving around behind the building, and there are only two of them. Spence and Dray can’t keep track of all of them alone.”
“The bad guys are already here?” Chas asked in dismay. Without having to be told, he stomped into his running shoes and quickly laced them up.
“You can stay here. The tangoes appear to be running reconnaissance right now.”
Chas squawked, “You want me to stay here by myself with bad guys closing in on me?”
“On you and Poppy,” Gunner said dryly.
“It’s adoll. I’ll be all alone. I waited for you under that desk for two hours that first night in Misty Falls, and it was a goddamned nightmare. I can’t do that again.”
“The only other option is to come out in the woods with me, and you don’t know anything about operating in stealth and darkness. I don’t even have a pair of NODs for you. You’d be blind out there.”
“I can hang on to your belt,” he said desperately. “Please don’t leave me in here. I’m a sitting duck.”
Gunner huffed. “I can take you out into the woods and find you a hidey-hole. You’d have to hunker down there and would still have to sit and wait it out. But you wouldn’t be in here.”
“I’ll take it,” Chas declared.
Gunner rummaged in one of his two big duffel bags. “Put this on.” He held out a black floppy hat with a wavy brim.
Chas jammed it on his head and then stood still while Gunner striped his face with a stick of camo grease that looked like a black version of children’s glue sticks.
“Put on a coat. You’ll get cold sitting still at night,” Gunner ordered.
Chas shrugged into a thick zip-up hoodie and threw his jacket over it as Gunner pulled down a microphone boom in front of his mouth and murmured into it.
“Okay. Spencer and Drago know the plan. They advise that we should go out the back way.”
“The back way?”
“The window. And bring the doll.”
Right. They had to pretend they had Poppy with them if this ruse was going to work. Chas tucked Poppy 2.0 into his coat and nodded gamely at Gunner that he was ready to roll.
It was exciting to be included in a SEAL operation, but it was also scary as hell. Breathing too fast, he followed Gunner into the bathroom and waited for him to climb out the window. Honestly, Chas was impressed at how easily Gunner maneuvered his big body and all his gear out that narrow opening. It was almost as if he’d practiced doing that a time or ten.
Gunner’s gloved hand came into view and waved for him to come out.
Chas climbed onto the toilet seat and then onto the nightstand. While he was pondering head first or feet first, Gunner whispered, “Head first. I’ll catch you.”
That solved that. Chas grabbed the edge of the windowsill and pushed his torso through the opening. Big, familiar hands grasped his shoulders from below, and Gunner whispered, “Kick your feet over your head. You’ll do a flip and land on your feet facing outward.”
Trusting Gunner to keep him from killing himself in the move, Chas threw his feet over his head. He landed in a crouch, startled at how easy it had been. The big shadow that was Gunner moved around in front of him and breathed into his ear on the way past, “Grab my belt. I’ll go slow. Try not to make much noise.”