Page 5

4

Three days later…

“Okay, boys! I’m here, which means the party can officially begin.” Lucky entered the team’s war room with his usual dramatic flair while Chase and the others sat around the conference table and waited. With his attention solely on the team, the tech genius asked no one in particular, “Seriously, though…what’s the big emergency? SECNAV decide to grace us with his virtual presence again, or did we sign some big-name client I don’t know about?”

“Neither.” Chase was the first to speak up. But before he could expand on his response, a deep, commanding voice intervened from a few feet away.

“The decision was mine, Mr. Lucas.” Naval Secretary Michael C. Webb spoke from his place behind where Lucky stood. “I decided it would be best to have this conversation in person, rather than from the other side of the screen.”

Like a deer caught in a set of bright, shiny headlights, Lucky’s brows shot up in surprise as he spun around to face the source of the comment. Chase inwardly groaned, barely resisting the urge to shake his head at his teammate’s most recent foot-in-mouth display.

“Uh…hey, Boss!” Lucky chuckled nervously before rushing into a rambling barrage of CYA. “You do know I was just kidding about the whole ‘gracing us with your presence’ thing, right? I mean…” Another huffed laugh. “I knew you were there the whole time. Spotted you the second I walked into the room, in fact.”

Webb approached Lucky with an outstretched hand and a look that said he wasn’t buying the man’s story for a second. “Of course you did.” A hint of a smile softened the powerful man’s stoic expression. “Glad to see some things never change. Good to see you again, Lucky. Been too long.”

“Right back atcha, Boss.”

A salt-and-pepper brow rose high above one of Webb’s dark brown eyes. “You know, one of these days, you’re gonna have to stop calling me that.”

“Never.” The two parted hands before Lucky turned and took his usual seat at the table. “So seriously. What’s going on? Must be important for you to fly all this way.”

The man’s words matched Chase’s thoughts exactly. No way the Secretary of the United States Navy drops everything to fly from D.C. to Seattle without having a damn good reason.

And Chase’s gut had a pretty good idea of what that reason was. Or at least what the man’s unexpected trip here was about.

Maybe we’re finally going to get some answers.

As if reading his mind, Archer Nash chimed in from across the table.

“This about Hunt?” The dark-haired explosives expert fixed his gaze on Webb’s.

A familiar weight settled in Chase’s chest at the mention of their fallen brother. Hunter Garrison had been one of the finest SEALs to have ever served. And the man was an even better friend.

We won’t stop until we uncover the truth about what happened that day, Hunt. You have my word.

“As a matter of fact”—Secretary Webb answered Archer’s question—“that’s exactly why I’m here. But if it’s all the same to you, gentlemen, I’d rather wait until Hayes gets here to go over what we’ve uncover?—”

“Sorry I’m late.” Logan Hayes rushed into the secured room. “Nat was having contractions, and we thought?—”

“Contractions?” Chase spun his cushy leather chair around to face his friend. “But she’s not due until?—”

“It was a false alarm.” Logan raised a palm, cutting Chase’s concern off at the pass. “Just a case of Braxton Hicks. From what they told us in her birthing class, they tend to start any time after the 20 th week and can even mimic the real thing before stopping altogether. Especially when the mother’s only a few weeks out, like Nat. The body’s way of preparing for birth, she said.”

“And Nat?” Archer inquired about the man’s wife.

“Oh, she’s perfectly fine now. But damn…” Logan raked his fingers through his short brown hair. “For a minute there, I thought for sure that was it.”

Poor guy looked as frazzled as he sounded. Very un- Logan like.

Typically the former SEAL leader was as cool as a cucumber. The only time Chase had ever seen the guy this flustered was back when he was trying to figure things out with Nat. The whole will they-won’t they dance those two did was one for the books, for sure.

In the end, the couple was able to get past the guilt of Natalie having been married to Hunter at the time of his death. Like Chase’s grandmother used to say…

Love is love, and the heart takes no prisoners.

Scottie’s smiling face filled his mind’s eye. His lips twitched, and he started to smile but became refocused when Webb finally got to the reason for the locked-door meeting.

“We found Farzad Akimi.” The man’s intelligent stare swept across every man at the table.

Every muscle in Chase’s body locked down tight at the name. Farzad Akimi was a trusted CIA asset who’d gone missing several months back. From what his team had been told, the young Afghani man had intel on what really happened the day they lost Hunter…including those who’d been involved.

Before Akimi went MIA, Webb had contacted the team to inform them of the man’s claims. From what Webb had shared, Akimi had supposedly overheard a conversation about the ambush that ended Hunter’s life…and Chase’s and the others’ Naval careers.

It was reported that Akimi became paranoid, willing to do whatever it took to free himself from the dangers of being a spy. Which apparently included pulling a pretty convincing disappearing act by vanishing into thin air.

Even Lucky, who was literally the most intelligent human being Chase knew, hadn’t been able to pick up a lead as to the man’s whereabouts. It seemed, for all intents and purposes, that Farzad Akimi had floated away with the wind.

Along with our hope of finally getting justice for Hunter.

“About fucking time you found him,” Van grumbled from the far end of the table.

Chase and the others looked at their perpetually grumpy teammate, not at all surprised by the guy’s attitude. Donovan “Van” Braddock was a surly bastard of the highest regard. But what he lacked in bedside manner, the tall, dark, and muscular former SEAL made up for in skill.

And despite Van’s Herculean effort to portray the contrary, Chase knew deep, deep down, the guy’s heart was every bit as big as the rest of theirs. Not that Van would ever dare show it.

“Braddock, let’s you and I make a deal, shall we?” Webb zeroed in on Van. “Maybe let’s bypass the bullshit back-and-forth dance we typically do and just get to what matters.”

“What matters is it’s been over three goddamn years since our team got ambushed on that fucking mountain…three years since we were forced to watch Hunt die …and we’re still no closer to identifying the son of a bitch who sold our asses out. And before you say there’s no proof that’s what happened, we all know the only way those assholes knew we’d be there was if someone tipped them off.”

Chase couldn’t argue with the man’s claim. The mission three years ago should have been a simple in and out. A fact-finding op designed to confirm a man named Jamal Hassan Muhammad was in Kandahar, as had been reported.

That was it. See the man. Take a few photos. Report back to SECNAV. The. Fucking. End. Only that hadn’t been the way their story had ended.

They may have climbed that mountain together as a six-man team. But fate had forced them to fly back home in silence, watching over the body of their murdered brother and wondering how the hell it had gone so wrong.

“I know exactly how long it’s been, Van,” Webb shot back, resting his meaty hands on his belted hips. “And there hasn’t been a single fucking day that’s gone by since that I haven’t thought about what happened to you men.” He swallowed hard. “Or to Hunter. Which is why I thought you all deserved to hear the news in person.”

“You said you found Akimi.” Chase brought the conversation full circle. “He finally decide to come out of hiding long enough to give up the sons of bitches who tried like hell to kill us all that day?”

“Unfortunately, no.” Webb picked up the small remote resting on the table before him. With the push of a button, he powered on the large ass screen mounted on the wall behind him.

The gruesome image that appeared would turn even the most hardened man’s stomach.

“Jesus,” Archer muttered beneath his breath.

Chase cringed, and Lucky blew out a frustrated breath.

“Son of a bitch,” Van growled, leaning back into his chair with a frustrated huff. Lifting his hands to the top of his head, he locked his fingers together and scowled.

Though Chase wanted nothing more than to look away from the still image of Akimi’s tortured corpse, he forced himself to study the picture with an operator’s eye.

“He didn’t go down easy,” he noted.

Even from here, it was easy to see the poor man’s fingers had all been broken. Every fingernail pulled from its delicate bed.

In a subconscious move, he curled his own fingers into a set of twin fists as he leaned in, resting his forearms on the table’s smooth surface. He’d take a bullet any day over having to withstand that shit.

Akimi withstood it. For a little while, at least.

“The doc who examined his body upon return to the States said every major bone in the man’s body had been broken, along with most of the smaller ones,” Webb explained. “Whoever did this knocked out all but four of Akimi’s teeth, they ruptured his spleen, cut him, burned him...and there was water present in his lungs, along with other physical evidence leading her to believe he was also waterboarded.”

It was Logan who spoke up next. “Hang on…you said, ‘whoever did this’. So you don’t know who killed him?”

“We have a suspect, and so far, the evidence from the scene is pretty?—”

“Here we go again.” Van threw up his hands in frustration.

“Van…” Archer shook his head in an attempt to stave off the frustrated man’s impending rage.

It didn’t work.

It never worked.

Because when Van got pissed…

“Another fucking dead end. Literally! ” He gestured toward the dead asset still frozen on the screen. “Why even come here, Webb? What…you get your rocks off jerking us around like this? Is that it?”

“Van!” Logan jumped in with a more authoritative voice.

But Van didn’t hear him. Or rather, he ignored their teammate’s warning and continued with his rant directed at Webb.

“You know what? Fuck this and fuck you! I’m done.” He pushed himself angrily to his feet, his wheeled chair rolling back several feet from the forceful move as the pissed-off former SEAL began rounding the table on his way to the door.

“Well, I’m not.” Webb looked and sounded as cool as a cucumber as followed Van’s furious movements. “We may have lost Akimi, but we gained something else. Or rather, someone else.”

Van’s angry steps faltered to a stop as an expression of confusion fell over Chase’s face.

“What do you mean you gained someone else?” he demanded.

“You have another asset who knows something?” Lucky piggybacked off Chase’s question.

Every member of Eagle’s Nest turned their attention to Webb, who slid his hardened gaze directly to Van’s.

“We know someone who was there when Akimi was murdered,” the larger than life man explained. “And I used the word ‘suspect’ because we’re still putting all the evidence together before making an official call.”

The room grew silent, the air surrounding them becoming thick with tension.

Much like Chase, Archer leaned in, his elbows resting against the table in front of him. “That’s great and all but knowing the identity of whoever killed your asset doesn’t exactly do much to help us with our goal.”

“It does when the suspected killer has a direct connection to your team.”

Chase and the others all shared a collective what the fuck glance before Logan took control of their side of the conversation.

“How the hell is he connected to us?”

“That’s the thing.” Webb clicked another button on the remote. “The person we believe is responsible for Akimi’s ruthless torture and subsequent death a few weeks ago—the person we suspect of leaking intel about your team’s presence on that mountain years earlier—isn’t a he.”

The macabre image of Farzad Akimi’s brutally murdered body vanished, and with one more push with his thumb, another image appeared.

Long, black hair. Dark, soulful eyes. Flawless olive complexion with cheekbones some women paid thousands to achieve.

“Whoa.” Lucky’s blue eyes widened with male appreciation.

Chase couldn’t argue with the man’s one-word assessment. “You know her?’

“No, but the old me sure would’ve loved the chance to get to know her. Back in the day, of course.” The computer whiz quickly changed his tune. “You know…before Ellie.”

Chase and a few of the others snickered beneath their breaths. Regardless of Lucky’s shared appreciation for the attractive woman on the screen, every man in that room knew the guy’s eyes, heart—and every other body part—belonged exclusively to his new wife.

And what the hell is the deal with that? A guy like Lucky can land a forever kind of love, but I can’t?

The unspoken thought came from left field, leaving Chase suddenly feeling out of sorts. To make matters worse, his mind conjured up a mental image of another woman altogether. One he’d unexpectedly reconnected with just three days prior.

Scottie.

Seeing his high school sweetheart again, after all these years, had definitely been a shock to his entire system. A surprising, wonderful, confusing shock. And when he saw her in that dress the other night…

So fucking gorgeous.

The woman had literally taken his breath away when he’d first spotted her in that off-the-shoulder number she’d worn to the shelter’s benefit auction. And for the entire last half of the evening, Chase had found himself imagining what it would be like to slide the blue satiny dress down her body, uncovering the woman’s mouthwatering curves as he leaned in and pressed his lips to her?—

“She looks familiar,” Logan’s musings about the woman’s projected image sliced through Chase’s inappropriate thoughts. “Who is she?”

Get your head in the game, dipshit!

Pulling in a slow, deep breath through his nose, he released it at the same, steady pace. His subconscious was right. This wasn’t the time to fantasize about the one who got away.

But even as he forced himself to focus solely on the conversation at hand, he couldn’t help but acknowledge that, as pretty as the exotic woman on the screen was, she didn’t hold a candle to a very grown-up Scottie.

“Her name is Kaamisha Dawari,” Webb answered Van’s question. “She’s a thirty-four-year-old grad student-turned-terrorist.”

Back then, females were still allowed to pursue a higher education. Today, not so much.

“ She’s a terrorist?” Chase blinked in surprise.

He knew as well as anyone that there wasn’t a cut-and-paste look for those who possessed a hateful thirst for blood. But damn. Going after a terrorist as pretty as the woman in Webb’s picture would definitely be a team first.

Archer’s doubt was more than a little obvious as he continued staring at the woman’s picture. “You really think she’s the one who tortured and killed your asset?”

“Akimi may not have died directly by her hands, but we have every reason to believe Dawari is the one responsible. We’re exhausting every measure to confirm this, of course. But at the very least, we know for a fact she was present at the time of his death.”

Van’s tone was still as gruff as ever when he finally spoke up once again. “How do you know ‘for a fact’ that this woman was there?”

“DNA.” Webb didn’t so much as hesitate in his response. He pressed the remote again, bringing up a second, smaller image overlaying the top right corner of the screen.

Chase squinted a bit in an attempt to make out what he was seeing. “Is that…a hair?”

Sure looked like it. Long. Black. Specs of what appeared to be blood on several areas along the single strand.

“Not just any hair.” Webb pointed a meaty finger at the woman in the picture. “It’s Kaamisha Dawari’s, and it was found partially embedded in one of Akimi’s wounds. Only way that happens is if?—”

“She was there.” Archer nodded slowly. “Of course, she also could have found him right after. Maybe she found his body and attempted medical aid.”

“Trust me.” Webb was already shaking his head. “Dawari’s up to her eyebrows in this shit.”

“Hang on.” Logan returned the conversation all the way back to the beginning. “Say you’re right, and Kaamisha Dawari is the killer. Why would someone like her want a CIA asset dead?”

“Pretty sure you just answered your own question.” Lucky scoffed. “The guy was a U.S. sanctioned spy, after all.”

“Lucky isn’t wrong,” Webb interjected. “The running theory is that Dawari somehow found out Akimi was working as a CIA asset, and she tortured him for information before green-lighting his execution.”

“Information on what?” Van tore his attention away from the screen, letting it land on Webb.

“On you.”

The entire room grew silent as Webb pressed the remote once more. Dawari’s face, along with the evidentiary image of her hair, vanished. Another picture in its place.

Like many from Chase’s SEAL Team days, this particular image was already cemented deep within his memories. The aftermath of a senseless feud that ended in destruction and death.

It was a place and time every member of Eagle’s Nest Securities recognized instantly. And though it had been three years since they’d stepped foot in Afghanistan, one look at that picture and it felt like fucking yesterday.

“Kandahar, Afghanistan,” Webb announced unnecessarily. “As I’m sure you all remember, this was taken by your team three years ago during your first mission to confirm Jamal Hassan Muhammad’s whereabouts.”

Oh, yeah. They remembered.

It was two weeks before their return trip to the same region. Two weeks before Hunter was killed.

At the time, Muhammad had been the Taliban’s top division commander. The U.S. had been after him for years, so when word came through the wire that Muhammad was in Kandahar, the plan to confirm the murdering asshole’s whereabouts was quickly put into place.

As members of the now-disbanded Black Squadron One—the classified Tier 1 team of operators for the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU—they’d been tasked with going in, snapping a few pictures of Muhammad, and getting the hell out.

So Chase and the others went to Kandahar as ordered. When the time came, they settled in along the street near the restaurant where the Taliban leader’s meeting with another terrorist higher-up was to take place. And then…they waited.

But Muhammad never showed.

Instead, he sent three of his well-known associates to take his place. Ten minutes later, the two groups of terrorist assholes exited the restaurant before getting into an argument that resulted in guns being drawn and bullets flying.

Chase and his team had immediately taken cover, unable to return fire without risking the innocent civilians in the area. A few short minutes later, the shooting was over, and the downtown street of Kandahar was littered with bodies.

In the end, Muhammad’s men and the pricks they’d gone there to meet had all shot each other dead. As for Chase and his team, they’d survived, but…

Total mission failure.

“You gonna get to the point of this little walk down memory lane sometime soon, or do we get three guesses?” Van crossed his arms at his chest as he stared straight back at Webb.

Webb’s dark eyes didn’t so much as flinch. “You remember the civilian who was caught in the crossfire that day?”

“I remember.” Lucky sat up a little straighter. “Middle-aged. Dark hair. She and her mahram exited the restaurant shortly before the first shots rang out.”

“That’s right.” Archer nodded in agreement.

“Whole point of a mahram in their culture is so the unmarriable male can watch over the females.” A haunted look filled Logan’s eyes as he gave a slow, steady nod. “But he let her walk out that door first. Totally unprotected. He survived, but she didn’t.”

“No,” Webb concurred. “Unfortunately, she did not. She was preceded in death by her husband, but they had a daughter.”

“Let me guess,” Chase put the pieces together quickly. “Her name’s Kaamisha, and?—”

“She blamed us for her mother’s death.” Logan seemed to read Chase’s mind.

Webb gave his head a solemn nod. “According to the chatter we’ve been hearing, yes. Three years ago, in the two weeks after her mother was killed, Kaamisha Dawari tipped off the Taliban to the fact that your team was returning to the area, effectively setting you all up to die.”