Page 37 of Breaking Danger (Ghost Ops #3)

CHAPTER TEN

Near Eureka

The compound was exactly where the GPS said it would be, exactly as it had appeared in satellite photos.

Two adobe walls that became concrete where they plunged into the ocean to create a private section of beach.

Beyond, the shimmer of a pool and several light colored structures set amongst lush vegetation.

It was that moment as dawn was breaking where vision was limited but night vision no longer worked.

That moment when professional soldiers never attacked.

Pros needed the night.

He’d been watching the shore carefully through NV goggles while Sophie slept. She needed to sleep. She’d been white as ice, dark bruises under haunted eyes. She’d never have admitted it but she was shaking for an hour after they’d made it on the boat.

Fuck, it had been close. Thank God he’d packed his Glock together with the stunner, they’d never have been able to cut the rope tying them to the pier with a hatchet with all the infected throwing themselves forward, hoping to make it onto the boat.

He’d never seen anything like that. He’d known they were fearless but that had been something else.

It had felt as if they were eager to die, just as long as someone, somehow got to them.

Every single instinct he had as a warrior was wrong, didn’t help.

A warrior assumed his enemies didn’t want to die and didn’t want maiming wounds.

You used that in soldiering, counted on it.

Not even suicide bombers—and he’d had the immense pleasure of taking out a few—had behaved like that.

The infected had thrown themselves with abandon from the street level down onto the pier even though most of them fell in a useless heap, bones too broken to stand.

But at the end, when fifty, a hundred people were lying there, broken, the next ones to fall fell on the broken bodies, not the concrete pier, and survived.

They’d unhesitatingly leaped into the water, without any thought of water as a medium that could kill.

Jon had watched in horror as dozens died after stepping off the pier, falling straight down, arms still flailing, still trying to grab him and Sophie.

This was the kind of danger no training could prepare you for, because it was, in the most literal sense of the term, alien. It couldn’t have been more different if green monsters had stepped off a spaceship to attack. Aliens who did not share reflexes or instincts with humans.

So if he was terrified, so shocked it was only his training that kept him going, how could Sophie have felt less? And yet, terrified and shocked herself, she hadn’t broken stride, hadn’t faltered.

And she was brilliant. And a fucking beauty.

A woman like no other.

Man, he hadn’t known women like this existed.

He was way more experienced at fucking than relating.

He’d spent his entire adult life in the military.

And a lot of that time had been spent undercover, when having an affair could be lethal if you chose the wrong woman.

Or deadly for her. For long stretches of time, fucking a woman meant painting a huge bull’s eye on her back.

So no, relating, having an affair, hadn’t been a good idea.

Undercover, his entire existence was a lie.

He had no problems with lying and could keep it all straight in his head, no question.

At various times he’d told women he was the son of an optometrist and lawyer, the son of a banker and a homemaker, the son of a professor of history and a bookstore owner.

He had entire legends he could unspool instantly and be completely consistent and believable.

Tales of his childhood, quirks of aunts and uncles, favorite pets. Oh yes, Jon could be convincing.

And at no time, ever, had he told any woman what he’d told Sophie.

Even now he was astonished at himself. Not that he regretted it, no, but he was surprised.

It hadn’t been part of the mission in any way to bond with Sophie and yet…

there it was. He’d told her who he really was, what he really came from.

Shit. That’s what he came from. Misery and degradation

Every single story he’d ever told a woman had been rehearsed over and over until the genuine tones of sincerity could be heard. No one had ever questioned his cover story. Stories. There’d been so many of them.

He couldn’t imagine ever telling anyone the truth, not even his teammates in Ghost Ops.

He’d catch a bullet for them, every single man, but he’d never tell them the truth of his childhood.

And here he’d told Sophie everything, without any hesitation.

In fact, it had come geysering out of him, unstoppable, like blood out of a slashed artery.

He shook his head, barely understanding himself.

Maybe it was this end-of-the-world thing.

He could tell Sophie anything—even the truth—because they were going to die.

But no. He knew he was going to do everything in his power—and his powers were considerable—to survive and to make sure Sophie survived. So that wasn’t it.

For some crazy reason, he wanted Sophie to understand him, to see him as he really was.

Tainted blood and everything. Yeah, how nuts was that?

An exfil with a civilian was all about trust. Not the soldier’s trust but the civilian’s trust. Civilians had to instinctively trust that the soldier was going to get them the hell away, because when the soldier said jump, one second later the target’s shoes had to be off the ground.

Total blind trust was what would get them out.

And so what did he do? Tell Sophie where he came from, not guaranteed to inspire a whole lot of trust, no.

What the fuck?

For the first time ever since he’d become a soldier, Jon was of two minds, had two conflicting desires.

Get Sophie out safely.

Let her know who he really was.

It was a form of insanity, maybe a reaction to the craziness and chaos he’d seen out on the streets. That was it. Except…he felt better after he’d told her. Cleaner, lighter.

Jon put down his binocs, checked his scanner.

No infected. That made sense. It was a pretty empty part of the world, with the Humboldt State Park not far away.

The infected could only go as far as their feet could take them.

There hadn’t been any people here before, and there weren’t any infected now.

He looked around at the long flat beach stretching far into the distance north and south and at the vast flat expanse of the ocean.

Safe. They were safe. It seemed almost impossible after the scenes in San Francisco but they’d been granted this little oasis of calm. He had to make the most of it because they were going to have to cross the state through populated areas without being able to use the roads. In the dark.

“Honey.” Jon nudged Sophie’s shoulder with his own and watched her come out of the stages of sleep. Her breathing, slow and deep, became shallow, her eyes cycling rapidly behind her eyelids, hands opening and closing.

Suddenly her eyes opened and he was the first thing she saw.

Coming out of sleep can be a fearsome thing, that transiton from the dream world to the real world.

Particularly this world, breaking down before their eyes.

So he was prepared for her to wake up plunged into despair because whatever she’d dreamed about, her worst possible nightmare, couldn’t be worse than what was happening now.

She astonished him. Her eyes opened, focused on him like a deep blue beam, and she smiled when she saw him. “Hey.” Her voice was husky with sleep. Face soft with emotion.

Goddamn. His throat was tight, his chest was tight. That soft look, lips slightly upturned… He cleared his throat. “Hey, yourself.”

She turned her head, taking everything in.

To the east, past the compound, the sky was lighter than the color of her eyes, and over the ocean it was a deep blue, darker than her eyes.

It was chilly but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

She studied the compound, silent and welcoming in the dawn. “We’re here. We made it.”

“We did. Up you go.” He gave her his hand and she stood, still clutching the thermal blanket. “Let’s get the boat squared away and go explore our new temporary home.”

She nodded. He wanted to make sure the boat would be available to them at all times. They were safe here but that could change in a heartbeat.

They tied the boat to the pier and walked down it, feet loud on the uneven planks. They carried everything with them—Sophie her backpack and Jon his combat pack and the vaccine case. If they had to make a run for it, they had to have everything to hand.

Sandstone steps led from the beach to the lowest level of the compound and…

“Wow,” Sophie breathed.

“Yeah.” It was spectacular, much more than a B & B. It was a mansion, spreading out over several stories but somehow intimate at the same time. “But we don’t have time to sightsee. I want to get inside.”

Jon hustled them along. They skirted an infinity pool, huge enameled planters with flowering plants, up cobblestoned pathways, across a terracotta tiled terrace that could have doubled as a tennis court until they came to the entrance—a double wide set of armored glass doors that were mirrored so he couldn’t see inside.

Jon checked his scanner compulsively. They were fucked if there were any infected inside.

But the screen was blank. He checked the side of the huge glass entrance and found a screen.

One swipe and the screen turned into a keypad.

He had once memorized one hundred complex banking passwords of the Cortez cartel.

One password was child’s play. He entered the code and with a slight pneumatic hiss, the huge glass door—as wide as his living room wall back in Haven—slid left.