Operation Zulu Redemption--Complete Season 1 (25 page)

“I see you got rid of your heels.” Annie shot her a wry grin and handed her some tissues, nodding to her nose.

Téya had almost forgotten about the blood—but the swelling made it impossible to forget the head butt. “Two men were waiting for me.” Once her breathing and heart rate stabilized, she lifted her right foot onto her knee to appraise the cut that had almost crippled her, and winced.

“Berg?” Annie cast her a worried look.

Téya shook her head. “Doubt it. This guy was trained, lightning fast, thus”—she motioned to her nose—“this. He was skilled. Do we know anything about Ballenger that says he was skilled like that? I thought he was just a guy working at the orphanage.”

“No, nothing. But we can’t rule him out,” Annie said as she lifted her phone. “I haven’t seen you look like that since your first go-round with Boone.”

Bristling, Téya nodded to the shattered artwork. “And the window?”

“Soon as I pulled into the parking lot looking for you, someone shot at me.”

“I don’t know how I missed a shooter.” As Téya used the vanity mirror to dab away the blood on her face, she realized the wig sat askew on her head. The part running toward the corner of her eyebrow. “Cleared that whole building looking for Ballenger, just in case he was there hiding out.” She bunched her shoulders. “Now that I say that—I realize how stupid it was to walk in there. I was on my way out when the guy came out of the shadows.”

“Trace,” Annie said into her phone. “I’ve got her, we—” She snapped her mouth shut, nodding. “I know. We are—” Her nostrils flared as apparently Trace interrupted her again. “Agreed. We’re heading back to Hollister now. Bye.” The words came tumbling out and she ended the call, dropping the phone on the dash. Dropping? More like
throwing
.

Dare Téya ask? “Did you two—”

“We’re going back to Hollister’s.”

“I kinda figured that out on my own. Thanks.”

Annie’s lips flattened. “Does he really think we can’t take care of ourselves?”

Téya eyed her friend and combat buddy, and knew no matter what she said, it wouldn’t help. “You think Hollister knew—or that she set us up?”

“How could she not?” The sneer was evident in Annie’s voice. “
She
gave us the address.”

“Well,” Téya said, checking the swelling and mess the guy made of her face in the vanity mirror, “then I’m ready to return the favor her handyman delivered.”

Annie

Denver, Colorado

14 May – 1720 Hours

“You set us up!”

Annie placed a hand on Téya’s arm, trying to calm her. They stood in the parking lot of HOMe, where they’d intercepted Mrs. Hollister from escaping.

Kellie Hollister stood defiant. “I did no such thing!”

“Funny how two skilled thugs show up at the exact building on the exact day you send us down there,” Téya said. “Took a shot at us”—she swung a hand toward the vehicle—“as you can see by the windshield, and tried to shove my nose through my gray matter. And you seriously expect us to believe you had nothing to do with that?”

Annie again tried to quiet her, this time with a look, too. “Mrs. Hollister, the place you sent us to is abandoned.”

“Look,” the woman said gently, “I am truly sorry for your injuries, and for what happened to the car, but I
promise
I had nothing to do with it. That was Berg Ballenger’s address. On the advice of my attorneys, I never visited the location, so I can’t say what is there or isn’t there.”

“On the advice of your attorney?” Annie asked.

Hollister sighed. “After Misrata, Berg wanted nothing to do with us. He tried to sue us for wrongful death, and it was getting really ugly, but then he vanished.” Her finely penciled-in eyebrows knitted as she hunched her shoulders. “I may not want to dredge up the past and revisit that nightmare, but I certainly wouldn’t knowingly send anyone into a dangerous situation.”

Somehow, Annie believed her. At least as far as this went. And what proof did they have to the contrary? That this woman had ulterior motives or ill intent toward them?

“Thank you,” Annie said. “We’ll be in touch again.”

Téya glared at her before turning and climbing back in the car. “I can’t believe you let her off like that,” she muttered, buckling in.

“We have no proof.”

“No, we only have fists and bullets flying at us.”

Trace

Lucketts, Virginia

17 May – 0915 Hours

“Find him,” Trace said as he stalked away from Houston. “He’s your top priority.”

“He’s not here,” Houston said, pointing to his bank of monitors. “I’ve looked since they got hit. He’s…just gone. No forwarding address. No pings on his SSN. I’ve tried variations of his name—he’s just not there.”

“He is there.” Trace clapped his shoulder. “Do whatever it takes.”

“Do I have to be quiet, keep it discreet? That makes it harder.”

“I don’t care if you have to scream—just scream anonymously.”

“Scream anonymously,” Houston repeated, his gaze locked with Trace’s. “Riiight.”

The national anthem belted out, and Trace lifted his phone from his pocket. “Weston.”

“I’m here… I think.”

Trace smirked. “Give me a second.” He strode toward the girls’ bunk rooms and rapped on the doors. “Rise and shine. Get dressed. PT clothes.”

A collective groan rose from behind the three doors.

“You realize we’re not in the military anymore, right?” came Téya’s loud complaint.

“Wrong attitude,” Trace said with a smile. “Five minutes. Command area.” With that, he headed through the tunnels and made it topside. There he found a sleek black Suzuki GSX1 300R Hayabusa parked beside his Charger. A beefy guy wearing a T-shirt and jeans secured a flag-and-eagle screen-printed helmet. “Quade.”

The guy turned and grinned. “Weston.” Then he frowned. “You look old.”

“About two years younger than you.”

Quade Henley laughed, caught Trace’s hand in a firm grip, and gave him a shoulder-bump-pat greeting.

“Have any trouble finding it?”

“More than I’ll admit.”

“Followed?”

“Yeah, but I killed them.” Quade didn’t miss a beat with this sick humor.

Trace laughed, shaking his head. “If you only knew how funny that wasn’t.”

“Don’t worry. Witnesses will report that actor did it.” More times than not, Quade was mistaken for the actor/wrestler Dwayne Johnson. The guy had a quick mind but an even quicker fist. “So, you need me to do some CQC training with a team?”

Trace nodded toward the secret passage. “C’mon. I’ll explain on the way down.”

Quade hooked his arm, stopping them both. “Hey.” Intense eyes probed Trace’s. “You okay, man? Seriously—you look tired. Stressed.”

Nothing like having your longtime best friend call it straight. “Yeah. I’m okay. But it’s bad.”

With a hesitating bounce of his head, Quade slowly released him. “Of course it is—you called
me
. You hate the way I train grunts.”

Zulu sure wouldn’t appreciate him calling them grunts, but at this point, they were beyond platitudes and stroking egos. “We might disagree on methods, but you get results.” Trace started walking. “We
need
results. Two of them were hit hard the other day. They are being hunted.” He hustled down the narrow set of stairs to the concrete bunker.

“Hold up,” Quade said, ducking as he went. “Hold up.”

Hand on the final security measure, Trace turned to his friend, the lone bulb twinkling overhead.

“Is this…” Quade swiped a hand over his mouth. “Is this…
them
? The team you—”

Scowling, Trace said nothing but released the final door. His buddy knew better than to ask that. To go there.

They stepped into the somewhat brighter bunker. Zulu stood there, arms folded, eyes bleary, wearing gym shorts and shirts. Téya’s messy and spunky ponytail reflected the girl’s spirit. Annie’s wavy blond hair looked like she’d had a fight with an electrical socket, and her expression mirrored that. As he’d come to expect, Nuala looked poised and put together, as if she’d been awake for hours. She probably had been.

“I haven’t had a cup of coffee yet, so if you expect
nice
, you came to the wrong bunker, Commander,” Téya said around a yawn.

Trace ignored the way his friend gawked at the girls. “After what happened to Téya, I felt it was time to regroup. Get some refresher training under our belts and face this threat head-on.”

“Do we know the threat yet?” Annie challenged.

“From the looks of her face,” Quade injected himself, “you don’t. And as your commander said, it’s time to regroup. My name is Quade Henley.”

“Henley’s an expert in close-quarters combat and krav maga.”

“Street fighting. I took that already,” Téya said.

“Not the way I teach it,” Quade boasted.

Fire roiled through Annie’s expression. “But he’s
not
a part of this team. And that means he can bring trouble.”

“He won’t,” Trace countered, heading off her objection.

“Where exactly are we training?” Téya asked, her eyes narrowed.

Trace led them out a side door and down a narrow tunnel beneath the stairs. There they found another room. Cement floors and walls, a couple of lights, and mats secured to the center. “Boone intended this for a recreation room, but defense is more important right now.”

The others moved around the room, straight to the red-and-black floor mats. Last in, Annie hovered near the entrance with him. She turned to Trace. “You’re kidding, right?”

He frowned. “About making sure my team is the safest it can be? Absolutely not.”

“We don’t know him,” she hissed through a breath. “How can you bring a stranger—”

“He’s not. I know Quade better than I know most of you.”

“He’s a newb to us.”

“Don’t let him hear you call him that.” He tried to lighten things up.

“How can you do this? You won’t let me talk to Sam or Téya to David, yet you bring in—”

“Enough.” Trace drew in his anger and frustration with a long, controlled breath. “Enough. Trust me on this. For once in your life,
trust

Her blue eyes blazed. “I did that once. It didn’t turn out so well.”

The words were very well placed. “You’re still alive, aren’t you?”

“I—”

“Hey. Blondie.”

Annie’s anger flared as she turned to Quade.

“Maybe you’ve been out a little too long, but when your commanding officer gives an order, you obey it.” Quade gave Trace a look that said too much, that he didn’t understand why Trace hadn’t put Annie in her place. That said he was smart enough to figure out the rest if he spent some time on it. In essence, Quade had read through the blood-covered pages of their past.

Trace turned and left without another word. Feeling beaten and whipped, he sat on the iron steps leading to the upper level. Roughed his hands over his face. He’d failed the team. Failed Zulu. Failed each and every girl. Now he had to protect them, train them, prepare them for an enemy he couldn’t even name. An enemy who had somehow taken a bead on them.

Why not me?
Why hadn’t he been targeted? And Boone. There had to be enough intel for them to figure out he and Boone were implicated. This situation was an exercise in futility trying to figure who rode their backs. And being around Annie again.

Trace rubbed his knuckles, conjuring up memories and images he thought he’d smothered years ago. She’d been promising, young, idealistic, naive—beautiful. Hiding Zulu, hiding her, had cost him everything. And she would never forgive him. He’d accepted that years ago, but hearing her hatred, hearing the venom in her voice was something he hadn’t been prepared for.

“This doesn’t look good.” Boone’s voice boomed through the stairwell as he descended from the upper level.

Peeling himself off the stairs, Trace sighed.

“Let me guess—Quade didn’t go over too well with them.”

“It’ll get worse,” Trace said as he stepped toward the command center. “They just started.”

“When do you want me to brush up their firearms training?”

“Tonight. We can’t afford to be soft on them. Whoever wants them dead is hitting them for all they’re worth.” Trace planted his hands on his tac belt. “How’s Shay?”

Boone’s face brightened. “Good. Doc said she’s made a lot of improvement. I’m looking into bringing her back here, setting up a bed.”

Trace frowned. “We can’t bring a nurse or doctor in here.”

“I can take care of her.”

“No.” Trace started for the briefing room. “I need your attention on Téya, Annie, and Nuala, not babysitting.”

“Look, I know you don’t care—”

Trace pivoted on his friend. “What I don’t care for is that you crossed the line. I knew it was happening. But it didn’t interfere with your job performance, so I kept my nose out of it. You violated code and got intimate with her. Now it’s compromising your position.”

Boone’s face went dark.

Trace huffed. “Look, really—I don’t care if you two ran off and eloped. What I do care about is keeping Zulu alive and taking down this piece of dirt trying to nail their coffins shut.”

“Same here,” Boone said.

“But Shay…?” Trace shook his head.

With a narrowed gaze, Boone held out his meaty arms. “What are you asking…?”

“Not asking. Telling.” Trace swung open the briefing room door. “Shay’s not coming here. Too complicated and too risky. Leave her there. When she’s ambulatory, we’ll give her a bunk. Until then—she’s best situated with medical staff.”

Téya

Lucketts, Virginia

19 May – 1645 Hours

“C’mon, ladies! Pain is weakness leaving the body!” Quade Henley barked as he paced the “workout” room like a rabid dog.

“I’ll give you some pain,” Téya muttered as she did her fortieth sit-up. Sweat slid down her forehead and into her eye, burning.

“What was that, Freckles?” Quade went to a knee, leaning into her face as she continued her repetitions. “Think your attacker is going to—”

Téya’s fist shot up at his nose.

Quade caught it. Twisted and turned, flipping her onto her stomach, then hooked her hand behind her. “How’d I do that? How’d I get control of your body?”

Ignoring the pain it’d cause, Téya swung her free arm backward, her elbow catching him in the side of the head. Knocking him off balance.