Page 7

Three hours later, Frisco, Hollywood, Reardon, Sawyer, his operative, Kip “Skipper” Morrison, and the chopper pilot, Tempest “Babs” Van Buren sat in Kearsarge’s mess hall, waiting for news about Jane Jones—that was the only name for Haven that had been given to the staff who knew better than to dispute it.

There would be no record of her ever having been aboard, and all the medical documents in her chart would leave with her.

The crew was steadily bringing the ship closer to the Persian Gulf, northwest of the Arabian Sea.

The less time Haven spent in the air following surgery, the better.

Frisco just prayed she made it that far.

She hadn’t regained consciousness before being taken into surgery.

Glancing at Van Buren, a retired Air Force pilot in her early or midthirties, Frisco had to agree with her handle, which was short for “bad-ass bitch.” She’d flown like the hounds of Hell were nipping at their tail rotor, getting them to Kearsarge in record time, before battling some nasty crosswinds and high seas, left over from an earlier storm, during the landing.

Even some of the ship’s crew had remarked it was some of the best flying they’d ever seen under those conditions.

The only person who hadn’t agreed was Reardon who’d tossed his cookies a few times into a barf bag Sawyer had thrust into his hands.

It wasn’t until after Haven was being whisked away on the gurney, which had been waiting for their arrival, that Frisco had gotten a good look at the other woman.

As the brunette climbed out of the pilot’s seat, he’d caught a glimpse of her titanium left leg.

Later, Sawyer had told him how she’d lost it when an RPG had struck her helicopter in Afghanistan as she was extracting a bunch of Marines from a hot zone.

Despite her leg being mangled, she’d managed to fly the damaged bird far enough away from the enemy before crash landing it.

Every single one of the Marines had survived with, at worst, a few broken bones.

By the time a second rescue crew had retrieved them, they’d had to apply a tourniquet to Babs’s leg to keep her from bleeding to death.

At the hospital, the limb had needed to be amputated just below the knee.

After giving her time to recover and get her disability discharge, Sawyer had approached the woman, who’d flown him and others from SEAL Team Four on numerous missions.

He’d offered her a job as both a helo pilot and fleet mechanic at Trident.

Frisco had been impressed to learn the private company had its own Sikorsky MH-X Silent Hawk—an extremely expensive toy.

Unfortunately, though, for this mission on the other side of the world, they’d had to borrow the Blackhawk from allies in the region.

It must have cost a small fortune or a lot of payback markers to arrange it.

Taking another swig of the disgusting swill they called coffee around there, Frisco grimaced.

Usually the Navy vessels had awesome coffee, but this tasted like it’d been brewed with a dirty sock for a filter.

It was the middle of the night, and they’d been offered bunks to crash in, but everyone wanted to wait until the surgery was over.

Aside from a few crew members coming in and out for various reasons, the six of them were alone.

They’d been able to take showers and change into sweatpants and T-shirts purchased from the ship’s store on Trident’s tab.

Sawyer and Hollywood were both catching a combat nap in chairs to his left.

Across the room, Reardon, Skipper, and Babs were monitoring the news the crew had patched into a closed-circuit-TV via the ship’s satellite feed, even though the reception was sketchy at times.

The BBC was covering the story of the tragedy in India at what some people, newspapers, and magazines had been referring to, prior to today, as the Royal Wedding of the Year.

So far, a reported twenty-seven people were dead, including the groom’s father and brother, and scores were injured.

Most of the deaths, some bodies burned beyond recognition, had occurred in the cigar bar, which’d been down the hall from the library where Haven and Reardon had been standing.

The numbers were expected to rise as the authorities began to sift through the rubble of the mansion that had almost completely burned down after the two explosions had destroyed several rooms.

There was wide speculation about the tuxedoed men with guns found dead in the carnage of the building.

Several hadn’t been identified as being on the venue’s security detail.

There were also questions about the masked, militarized men, who’d emerged from the jungle, some of whom had been swooped up by a helicopter while kidnapping a couple.

The others had disappeared back the way they’d come after the chopper had taken off.

Some people were saying they’d been members of ISIS, others were blaming al Qaeda, and a few were saying it’d been British Special Forces getting revenge for recent attacks in London.

It was almost surprising no one had suggested they’d been aliens from another planet.

Frisco knew the Indian authorities would never be able to prove who’d actually been involved—Delta, Deimos, and Trident were that freaking good.

Nothing had been left behind that could come back and bite them on the ass.

Frisco’s mind kept flashing back to the moment when he’d realized Haven had been begging him to leave her to die.

What had been going through her brain, at that very moment, to be filled with so much despair she’d given up hope in less time than most people decided what was for dinner, he didn’t know.

Leaving her hadn’t been an option, whether she’d been dead already or just suffering from a hangnail.

But the look of resignation in her eyes as she’d pleaded with him would haunt him to his dying day.

Multiple footsteps approaching had Frisco glancing toward the entrance to the mess hall.

Ghost, Fletch, and a couple he didn’ t know walked in.

The commanding officer of the ship had dispatched a chopper to retrieve them at Sawyer’s request. Apparently, the retired SEAL had a lot of pull in the Navy—either that or he had friends in high places.

Like the six that’d been onboard Kearsarge for several hours, the new arrivals had found somewhere to shower and change into comfortable civilian clothing.

It was common to arrange for a safe house somewhere near the mission target in case things went to shit like they’d done earlier in the evening.

Hollywood instantly awoke and stood, scrubbing the sleep from his face, while Sawyer remained in his seat and held out a hand. “Ghost, I wish I could say it was nice to see you again.”

The Delta Team leader snorted as he shook the other man’s hand.

“Same here, Sawyer. We sent your teams back with ours; they should be over the Atlantic by now. Your brothers said to say, and I quote, ‘fuck you’ for sending your jet to meet you in Bahrain. They’re sitting in the back of a cargo plane and not too happy about it. ”

The other man scoffed. “Too fucking bad. Nick’s name isn’t on the letterhead, yet, and until it is, he’s shit out of luck. And Dev’s been getting too soft with his wife and kid. The trip will toughen him up again.”

“Ian, how’s Haven?” The exotic-looking woman’s voice drew Frisco’s attention.

Her features had him thinking she was of South American descent, but he couldn’t zero in on a specific country.

With long, black hair pulled back into a ponytail, she stood about five foot eight on two-inch-heeled western boots.

Her jean-clad legs seemed to go on for miles while her torso was covered by a long-sleeved, baby blue, V-neck T-shirt.

She was physically fit, and Frisco had a feeling she wasn’t a woman to be underestimated.

Her companion, who had his arm possessively around her waist, was a tall, muscular but lean man, with dirty blond hair that fell unrestrained just below his shoulders.

He was similarly dressed in jeans, a casual tee, and black biker boots and had that deadly aura about him those not in the special ops community might easily miss. This was a man not to be fucked with.

Sawyer shook his head. “Don’t know. She’s been unconscious since we loaded her onto the bird.

She got hit in the middle of her back, really close to her spine.

One of the nurses came out about twenty minutes ago and said they were wrapping things up.

The surgeon’s supposed to come out soon to talk to us.

By the way, Taint-waffle, this is Jackass and Sweetheart.

Hollywood has already had the pleasure.”

Frisco rolled his eyes as he held out his hand. “Everyone else calls me Frisco.”

The woman smiled as she shook his hand. “Everyone else calls me Jordyn, and this is Carter.”

“Nice to meet you. Wish it was under better circumstances.”

As Carter also gave him a handshake, Jordyn strode over to where the others were still watching the news.

Reardon’s attention had been so focused on the TV, he hadn’t even noticed when she and the others had come in.

When Jordyn put her hand on his arm, he startled, then stood and walked into her embrace.

It was then the man finally broke down, having remained stoic all this time.

His shoulders shook as he silently cried on her shoulder.

From what Frisco had figured out earlier, Reardon was very protective of both female spies, like they were his older sisters or something.

He’d spoken of both of them fondly over the past few hours to Babs, who’d tried to keep him engaged in conversation while they waited for news.