Operation Zulu Redemption: Out of Nowhere - Part 2 (2 page)

“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 Annie”—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 drudge 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.”

“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 me.
”

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.”

“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.

“Good, good,” he said, hopping to his feet and clapping. The guy gave new meaning to
rolling with the punches
. “Never give your opponent an opportunity. Read their body language, watch their eyes.”

When she reached fifty sit-ups, Téya lay there on the mat, staring at the ceiling. Anger and a sense of futility roiled through her. She did not want to be here in this cement coffin. Didn’t want to be engaged in acts of violence.

“Alright, ladies. On your feet,” Quade shouted.

“You realize we’re only a few feet away, right?” Nuala struggled to her feet. “Screaming doesn’t make a point any better than a normal tone of voice.”

Quade considered her. Then Téya and Annie, who grouped up around their teammate. “Hit the trail.”

Téya fantasized about throwing herself at him. Of conjuring up some psychic powers to make that lightbulb smash into his head. Anything to get this guy—

“
Moove it!”

Topside and jogging a barely existent trail through the woods and around a creek that bordered the property, Téya gritted her teeth. “I’m going to kill him.”

“I’m ready to take my knife to Trace for bringing this guy in,” Annie huffed out, her blond curls matted to her head with sweat.

“What is with that?” Téya wet her lips and swallowed to quench her parched throat.

“Don’t know,” Annie breathed. “But does Trace really think this will do any good?”

“Can’t outrun a sniper bullet.”

“Speaking of sniper—where’s Nuala?” Annie slowed to a fast walk, pushing her damp strands off her face. “If Trace can bring in this goon, why not Sam or David?”

Téya felt her stomach clench at the mention of David.

“Sam’s a Navy SEAL—or was.”

“Move it, ladies. Walking’s for wusses.” Quade’s voice boomed over a megaphone.

“Seriously?” Téya glowered. “Why not take out a billboard announcing where we are?”

“Guess he thinks we’re far enough out to be safe.” Annie resumed her run.

When they made it back to the bunker, Quade was there waiting. “Since you took your sweet time, do another lap.”

“Are you—?”

“Argue and I’ll add more.”

“Who do you think you are?” Téya demanded.

“The guy trying to keep you alive.” Quade stood firm. “In ten seconds, you’ll be doing two more laps.”

“This is bull,” Annie said.

“Ten. . .”

“Where’s Nuala?”

“Nine. . .”

Téya drew up her shoulders. Inched forward.

Annie hooked her arm. “C’mon. We can use the fresh air.”

Even as their feet padded across the inches-thick litter of fall and spring left in the field, they heard Quade say, “Clear your heads and come back ready to fight.”

“That’s a promise,” Téya hissed.

But as she ran this time, she let her mind drift to David—was he doing better? Had he recovered from whatever sent him to the hospital? Her heart and mind were tangled up in the conflicting messages her heart telegraphed. One to stay away and keep him safe. The other to rush to his side.

“Does it get to you?” she asked Annie.

“What?”

“That we put them in danger?” She dropped out of the jog, hands on her hips as she walked, sucking big gulps of air. “I mean—that’s why we were ordered to never return to our family or friends, right? So we don’t.” She swallowed hard, wetting her lips. “But we get close to people and put
them
in danger.”

Annie said nothing for a few minutes as they did a fast walk-jog. “Sam. . .” She sighed. “I staved off his attention for two years. Finally gave up and gave in. And
that
night, the sniper shows up.”

“Think he’ll give up?”

Annie lowered her gaze. “I. . .I don’t know. He’s like a pit bull when he gets an idea, but at the same time, I don’t know how much I meant to him. If I was just a challenge.”

“
Laaaddies
,” Quade’s voice taunted.

“I am truly going to kill him,” Téya said as she started jogging again.

“What about David—have you heard how he’s doing?”

Téya shook her head. “I’d rather not think about all that—I’d rather figure out where Berg Ballenger is, who was behind beating the tar out of me, and ultimately, who set us up in Misrata.”

“Wouldn’t we all?”

“How did we not have the information about Ballenger but HOMe did?”

“Maybe we weren’t supposed to have that,” Annie suggested. “Maybe she let something slip that shouldn’t have come out.”

“She admitted they were breaking rules letting Berg stay there with his wife.”

“Child bride, sounds like.”

“Maybe that’s why. Maybe HOMe knew it wouldn’t look good if word got out.”

They finished the mile-long lap, Téya’s rubbery legs threatening to pitch her to the ground as she made her way to the barn. Coming down the stairs, they encountered Boone, who was carrying a platter of burgers and hot dogs.

“What’s that?” Téya demanded.

“Burgers,” Boone said, a bit of sarcasm to his words, then he took the rest of the steps two at a time.

“Are we invited to the barbecue?” Annie asked as she continued down.

“Only if you hurry. I have a big appetite tonight.”

Downstairs in the showers, Téya slammed her door shut. Who were they to beat them to a pulp then act as if this were any ordinary day on the farm? As if they were just lazing about? Ordering them to work their muscles into oblivion while the men drank beers and ate burgers. She scrubbed herself clean in the shower, dressed, then stormed out into the command area.

Only the top of Houston’s curly hair was visible in the dimly lit area. Téya hit more lights, which yanked up the guy’s head. “Are they still up there?”

Pencil in mouth, Houston stared. Dropped the pencil. “Who?”

“Boone? The Torture-Master.”

Houston blinked. “Wha—”

With a grunt, Téya severed his reply. Irritation clawed up her spine. “Have you seen Nuala? She went missing after Henley’s torture session.”

“Nuala? I thought she was with you.”

“It’s a sad thing no one knows where we are,” Téya groused. “Because nobody’d ever know if they came in and killed one of us.”

“Now, that’s not fair—I’m very busy here.”

Yeah, busy with a whole lot of nothing that had gotten them nowhere. Futility and frustration soaked Téya’s muscles. She’d had it. Had enough of this. It was
over.