KissedByASEAL (2 page)

“I don’t follow.” Rick frowned.

“I’m saying if I own a shipping company and I’ve run it to date without any major problems, why should I go and spend big money on security?” Chris lifted one shoulder. “I might be willing to take the gamble and save the money.”

“But I would think any company shipping anything in a hot zone would realize the need for security. Everybody knows about Captain Phillips.” Rick reminded them of the operation where SEALs had been brought in to save the captain taken hostage.

The cargo ship, Maersk Alabama, had made a stop in Djibouti and was bound for Kenya when she was taken off the coast of Somalia by four pirates in a skiff.

The world knew one version of the events because of the news reports while it was happening, and a version of the story even further from the truth as portrayed in the Tom Hanks movie. But the men in the room, Chris in particular, knew the truth.

They’d all been active duty SEALs at the time, and it had been DEVGRU operatives who had been called in to take out the captors.

Chris nodded. “Yes, everyone knows the story, but that might be working against us.”

“How?” Jon asked.

“The Gulf of Aden is a hotbed of pirate activity thanks to Somalia. Yemen’s always been a terrorist hideout and it’s especially a cluster fuck now. But I’m thinking if a company isn’t running ships in that particular area, they might think they’re immune. Out of the hot zone. What you have to do is prove to them that the danger is everywhere.”

Jon nodded. “All right. So we’ll need to do a little research.”

“I hate research.” Zane scowled and shot Jon a glance. “That’s your department.”

Jon turned to Zane. “The company we’re presenting to is through one of your contacts. I can only find out so much online, so do you think you can find out where they’re shipping?”

“I’ll try. Give me a few.” Zane stood and fished his phone out of his pocket again as he moved toward the back door.

Darci swiveled her head to follow Zane’s path, before she forced her eyes back to the television.

Just the thought of her wasting her time on a man who had never cared about her pissed Chris off. Before he let his feelings get in the way of this meeting, and the functioning of this team, Chris decided to get back to the task at hand.

He tipped a chin toward the closed laptop on the table in front of Rick. “Can I use that for a second?”

“Sure thing.” Rick pushed it toward him. “Password is DEVGRU, all uppercase.”

Chris let out a snort. “Yeah, ’cause nobody who knows you could guess that.”

A deep furrow creased Rick’s brow. “So what? Who the hell would be trying to hack into my laptop?”

“You never know. That’s the point.” Chris opened a new browser and punched in a search for major shipping routes worldwide. “Looky here. One search and I already found a list of the oil chokepoints most crucial to the world economy. There are seven of ’em.”

“Okay. Where are they?” Jon sat poised with a pad of paper in front of him and a pen in hand. It had become his usual stance since this company had been not much more than the gleam of an idea and a logo sketched on a cocktail napkin at the bar.

Chris had to wonder if Jon had realized when he first thought of opening GAPS that he’d be handling a pen a hell of a lot more often than a weapon.

Then again, maybe that had been Jon’s goal—to exchange blood for ink.

Since Jon had gotten serious with Darci’s friend Ali last year, deployments and ops had probably lost their appeal for the man. Chris knew he wouldn’t have been so hyped to go on assignments when he’d been active if he had a sweet thing waiting at home . . . if he’d had Darci at home.

Chris focused on the task at hand and read over what was on the screen so he could pass it on to his friends. “Number one on the list is the Strait of Hormuz between Oman and Iran that connects the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Next is Malacca off the coast of Singapore. After that is the Suez Canal.”

“What the hell? What about the Horn of Africa? I would have thought that would have been in the top three. No?” Rick frowned.

Chris scrolled farther down the page. “Here you go. It’s listed as number four, the passageway between Djibouti and Yemen.”

When Rick nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer, Chris continued, “Okay, number five—“

“How about you sum up the rest and then just email that link to me?” Jon leveled a stare on Chris and put down his pen. He must have gotten tired of taking notes.

“Sure thing, boss.” Chris skimmed the rest of the article, looking for any surprises. “Five is the Turkish strait. Only half a mile wide. Damn, that’s narrow. Number six is the Panama Canal. It’s so low on the list because modern tankers are generally too big to pass through. And lucky number seven, the Danish Straits, because of the Scandinavian oil market.”

“So given that these are the seven places that an attack or a bottleneck would most affect world markets, that makes any ships passing through the region targets and a concern for the corporations that own them.” Jon recapped Chris’s point.

“Yup. Exactly.” Chris nodded. “And as y’all can see, it’s not just the war zone that’s a problem. These target areas range from the Mediterranean to the Baltic Sea.”
 

“So all we have to do is wait to see what Zane comes back with and if our potential client is shipping in any of those areas, we can—”

“Scare the hell out of ’em.” Grinning, Chris interrupted Rick.

“
Persuade
them there’s a need.” Jon’s description did sound nicer than Chris’s plan had.

Chris grinned. “See. That’s why you’re the front man and I’m the muscle.”

“Speaking of muscle—we working out later?” Rick asked Chris.

“Sure. Here or at my place?” Chris was torn as to which answer he was hoping for.

Working out here meant Darci would be around as both an inspiration and a distraction. But at his place there’d be nothing but men for company—him, Rick and Brody, if Chris’s brother and roommate was home from the base.

Not too inspiring, but also not distracting.

Chris never had been the kind to be conflicted. This bullshit was new.

When not at work, he had always been a go-with-the-flow, easygoing type of guy. At home, if there was cold beer in the fridge and his favorite team won, he was a happy man. Hell, when he’d been in the teams, if all the guys came home fairly unscathed, it was a win and he was happy.

It wasn’t until one blonde with legs long enough to be considered a sin came into his world that he started to be conflicted.

One reason for that was that she happened to be his teammate’s sister. There was an unwritten code of conduct against that kind of thing. He shouldn’t be having the kind of thoughts he had about Darci given that she was Rick’s sister.

Maybe that’s why Zane had never given Darci the time of day—the very bro code Chris was so tempted to break for her.
 

If that was the reason Zane had steered clear of Darci then Chris was more than grateful for it, because until recently Zane had his head up his ass when it came to women. The more notches in his belt the better. Quantity over quality—that had been Zane’s credo.

Zane never kept one of his conquests around long enough to risk her getting too attached to him. Darci wasn’t one of those kinds of girls. She wasn’t the one-night stand type, and Zane was, but that didn’t stop her from crushing on him.

Sometimes women couldn’t see what was best for them. Chris would just have to show her. He was good for Darci. Rick might have another opinion on that matter, though.
 

Chris would cross that bridge when he came to it. So far he hadn’t had to worry about jeopardizing his relationship with Rick by dating his sister, because Darci consistently laughed off Chris’s attempts at flirting with her as a joke.

Yeah, he joked around a lot, but little did Darci know he was dead serious when it came to her. One day he’d figure out a way to prove it to her.

“We’re here already. Let’s just do it here.” Rick answered Chris’s question about working out and yanked his mind off regrets about Darci and back to more immediately pressing matters. “Why don’t you call Brody? If he’s around and wants to work out he can come on over here.”

“I think the team had PT planned for late this afternoon so he’s not going to want to, if he’s even done this early.”

“Okay, so it’s just you and me. We can order a couple of pizzas after if you wanna stay. There’s a game on.”

“A’ight.” Chris sighed at Rick’s plan. Not the workout, or the game after, but the part where he wanted to work out to keep in shape and then fill up on pizza right afterward.

In the old days when he was on the teams, Chris could put away the food. He was younger then and working out hard constantly. Back then he was burning calories faster than he could consume them.

Now, at forty years old, he was starting to have to watch what he ate and work extra hard when he overdid it. These guys in their thirties didn’t understand. They didn’t worry about shit like that.

They’d see, one day.

“We’ve got the makings for salad. I was going to make one for myself. If you guys want, I can throw a big one together to go with your pizza.” Darci’s voice came from where she sat on the sofa.

At her out of the blue generosity, Chris’s gaze went immediately to her. “That’d be real nice. Thank you. I’ll help if it’s too much trouble.”

She waved away his offer. “Don’t worry about it. I can handle a salad.”

He’d see about that. Women liked nothing better than a man willing to help in the kitchen.

Being able to cook was just one of the many talents he’d like to show Darci. At least, it was one of the few talents he could show off in public.

Zane came back to the table after being outside on the phone for a long time. “All right. She’s emailing me the list of the past year’s worth of manifests that were filed. That will tell us where they have ships.”

Chris’s eyes widened. “How the hell did you get that? And who is this
she
?”

He wouldn’t be at all surprised if Zane had called on one of his former squeezes to get him private corporate records.

“My father’s secretary. She always has loved me.”

Rick chuckled. “No doubt.”
 

Zane rolled his eyes. “She’s been working for my father since I was a child.”

“Ah, an older woman. So she’s a cougar.” Rick rolled right with that new information, grinning.

Ignoring him, Zane continued. “It’s not a big deal. Those manifests are a matter of record. She’s just doing me the favor of compiling it.”

“All right, then. I’ll wait for your email.” Jon cut off the debate. “Moving on in the agenda . . .”

“We had an agenda?” Rick whispered to Chris.

He lifted one shoulder. “I guess so.”

Jon referred to his ever present notebook. “Office space and staff.”

Zane nodded. “I think we need both. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my father, it’s that appearance is everything. We have to look big even if we’re not.”

“And I think there’s no need to waste the money on stuff we don’t need right now. It’s not like clients need to come to our offices. It looks like we’re doing them a favor by going to their office to make the presentation.”

“And when they call and get you on your cell phone? What kind of message does that send?” Zane asked.

“That they have access to one of the principal partners of GAPS day or night without the hassle of having to go through support staff.” Jon turned to Chris and Rick. “What do you two think?”

What Chris thought was that he didn’t want to get in the middle of this debate between Jon and Zane.

Jon was the one who crunched the numbers and knew exactly how much money GAPS had and how much they needed to operate without going into the red. But Zane was the one who’d secured the start up capital from his rich girlfriend’s daddy.

“Hell, I don’t know.” Chris shook his head.

As if on cue, Jon’s cell rang where it sat on the table. He glanced down at the readout. “Shit. It’s the client.”

Rick let out a snort. “He probably wants to know why Zane’s father’s secretary is pawing through their shipping records.”
 

Zane rolled his eyes.

Chris’s eyes widened as the phone rang for the third time. “You better answer that.”

He could agree they didn’t need the expense of a full time secretary to answer the calls, but it probably wouldn’t make the client happy to get Jon’s voicemail.

“Ah, jeez. I’ll get it.” Darci stood and strode toward the table.

Good thing it was a small space and she had long legs. She reached the table by the fourth ring and hit to answer the call.

“Guardian Angel Protection Services. How may I direct your call?” Darci answered with all of the professionalism one would expect from a corporate secretary.

The guy on the other end of the line would never know she’d been lounging on the sofa watching some train wreck of a reality show on television when he’d called.