Point of No Return (16 page)

Chapter 13

The Ramsey home was a well-kept, older, two-story colonial on a cul-de-sac. An over-the-garage addition more than likely added another bedroom. Judging from the stickers and license plates on the cars parked on the street, the majority of the families in the neighborhood were military. Honey parked at the curb and out of habit scanned the unfamiliar neighborhood for bad guys. No men with AKs or rocket launchers. Only a guy next door pushing a mower, wearing headphones, his gray Navy T-shirt dark from sweat. The neighborhood was clear. As she walked the red brick path to the house the smell of cut grass, charcoal and food grilling filled the muggy evening air. A press of the doorbell rewarded her with a chime playing the Marine Corps hymn. A cry of
“I got it
” was followed with thundering footfalls that sounded like a squad of men. She took a step back as the door opened enough for a skinny dark-haired boy wearing a Nationals shirt and baggy shorts to be seen. He crinkled his nose, squinting at her through thick dark frame glasses and moved his legs around to keep a barking yellow dog from squeezing past. He pushed the glasses to the bridge of his nose with a finger and looked her up and down. “Yeah?” The dog barked and made another escape attempt.

“Captain! Back.” The dog immediately retreated.

“I’m Major Thornton.”

A shorter boy looking like a clone of the first, even to the same shirt, expanded the opening.

“I’m here to see Colonel and Mrs. Ramsey and Jenna.”

“You’re Major Thornton?” The two exchanged sideways glances.

“Yes.” Before she could say more, a third, taller clone muscled his way between the two.

“Let’s see some ID,” the littlest clone said, giving her a pretty good tough-man look.

The tallest put a hand on little guy’s face and pushed. “Shut up, ass hat.”

Honey looked down to hide a smile and dug in her purse for the ID.

“Stand down.” A deep, mature, masculine voice snapped Honey’s attention back.

The door swung fully open, revealing the clones’ DNA source. The three boys stood aside for a tall, broad-shouldered man with close-cropped dark hair wearing jeans and a button shirt loose at the hips. He gave the boys a look that would send the hardest Marine into submission and tipped his head in a move-it gesture. They retreated.

“Major Thornton, come in.” Honey stepped into the center hall. “Sorry about that. I’m Mike Ramsey.” He extended a hand.

Noting the lack of rank in his introduction, she did the same. “Honey Thornton.” She took his extended hand. “Good to meet you.” Though casually dressed and relaxed, Ramsey had a commanding presence. A man in his prime, physically fit and exuding the confidence of a USMC colonel.

“These are my sons,” Ramsey said, as if there were any question. “Mike Jr., Mason, and Morgan. Guys,” he turned to the boys, “this is Major Thornton, the OIC of your sister’s rescue team. They offered their hands and she dutifully shook. She glanced back to Ramsey. “Sorry we’re meeting under these circumstances.”

“Honey. That really your name?” The littlest clone fish eyed her.

Father spun on son “Morgan.”

Mason coughed. “Name should be moron.” He said behind a hand.

“Apologize to the Major.”

The boy dipped his head, his mouth twisted working out the words. “I apologize, Major.”

“Apology accepted.” Honey said. She got that all the time and it didn’t bother her, but she wasn’t about to get between a man and his son where discipline was involved.

“In here.” Ramsey extended an inviting arm toward a room furnished in nondescript fit-in-anywhere furniture decorated with what Honey called duty station accessories. Rug in the center of the wood floor from the Middle East, Asian vase lamps, rather nice oil paintings. Military wives were pretty savvy decorators, mixing mementos from frequent moves with regional styles.

The boys took up positions on the sofa, perched on the edge of the cushions, backs straight and gazes fixed on her. Fuck! She wasn’t at all comfortable with this but understood it was a way for the family to get closure. She sat opposite the boys in a comfortable overstuffed chair. A carved coffee table, like those she’d seen in the Philippines, stood between them.

The colonel chose to remain standing. “Go ahead,” he said.

Mike Jr. took in a long breath and straightened his spine. “Major, I’d—” He glanced at his brothers. “
We’d
like to thank you and the rest of the team for getting our sister out of there.” Mason and Morgan nodded. “She can be a real pain, but . . .” He looked at his shoes and sighed, finally returning his gaze to her. “I love her.”

“
We
love her,” Morgan interrupted. He looked at his oldest brother. “And you think she’s a pain because she gives you grief about the girls you date.”

“Shut up.” Mason put his brother in a headlock and clamped a hand over his mouth. Morgan immediately initiated evasion maneuvers, banging the coffee table with a knee.

“Enough. Hands to yourself.” The boys froze and Honey reflexively twitched at Ramsey’s
I mean business
tone. Morgan and Mason slowly did as ordered. Mason put two fingers to his eyes and flicked his hand in Morgan’s direction, giving him the universal I’m-watching-you symbol. “The boys want to ask you about the extraction,” Ramsey said. “Do you mind answering a few questions?”

She looked at the man for a sign in his expression as to how much she should, could say. He gave her a nod of approval. She looked at each of the boys and said, “I’ll be glad to answer your questions,” and then looked back to the colonel. “Will Jenna and Mrs. Ramsey be joining us? I understand she was released from the hospital yesterday.”

All eyes went to the colonel, who scratched the back of his head and shifted his weight from one foot to another.

“She isn’t here. My wife took her to my parents’ place in Vermont.” The boys’ eyes narrowed.

“Jenna must be doing well for her to travel.” Honey was sure Ramsey had lied.

“Yes. Physically she’ll recover.” He perched on the sofa arm and folded his arms over his chest. The conversation about Jenna was now closed.

She retuned her attention to the young Ramseys and smiled. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell us everything,” Mason blurted enthusiastically.

“How many of the bad guys did you kill?” Morgan wasn’t shy.

Honey looked at the colonel, who gave her another nod. “Jenna told them a lot.”

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her thighs, mimicking the boys’ posture.

“The team was five.”

“That’s short,” Mike Jr. said.

“Yes.” Honey was momentarily surprised this was something he would know. “My team had been operating short for a while. We were offered two fill-ins but felt going in short was better than waiting the four hours it would take to get them to our location.” The boys nodded. “We had a ten-klick hike in. The plan was to wait until dead of night, oh-two-hundred. Get in and get out quietly.”

“But you didn’t wait.” Mason shook his head slowly.

“No. I made the decision to go right then.”

“Why?” Morgan pushed his glasses back.

Honey looked to Ramsey, who closed his eyes and nodded approval.

“I was in the hills using the glasses, scanning the buildings for Jenna. I focused on a shack with no door and saw a man inside raise and lower his arm. He had a board in his hand and he was clearly hitting something,
someone
.”

Morgan twitched. Mason’s lips clamped together, his eyes narrowed. Mike Jr. hadn’t quite perfected an unreadable expression. His quiet anger was palpable. “Jenna,” he said.

Honey nodded. “I wasn’t sure it was her at that point. The Tango, that’s our term for the bad guys—”

“We know,” Mike Jr. said.

Honey nodded. “Sorry.” She wouldn’t talk down to them again. “The Tango left the building and I saw a figure huddled in the shadows against the back wall. I decided to go in. Whoever it was, I was not leaving them there another moment.”

“When did you know it was Jenna?” Mason asked.

“Not until I was crouched in front of her, checking her against the photo I’d been given. She was dirty, thin, sick. Jenna pointed out Kelly Saunders. We had no idea Kelly would be there.”

“Do you know why they took my sister?” Morgan said.

Honey read fear in his dark eyes. “No. Not yet,” she said confidently, wanting to give the impression the why and the who would be discovered.

“Go on,” the colonel urged.

His tone gave her pause. Unlike his oldest son, he had perfected the unreadable expression. She went on. “Before we could move them we were discovered.”

“You made the men who took Jenna pay,” Mike Jr. said.

Honey looked at each boy. “Yes . . . they paid. It was the only way.”

“But more were coming.”

“Yes.” The leap ahead allowed her to gloss over details. “Two more vehicles were coming. Luckily from a different direction than we were going. We climbed into the truck we’d commandeered and headed for the border and our ride home. Again, we were discovered and chased. The truck wasn’t in the best shape and was loaded down with seven people, so it was having problems making the hills. We were barely doing twenty and being overtaken . . .
fast
.”

The memory of being in the back of that truck came back like a flash flood roaring down a dry canyon. Santiago cradling Kelly and Jenna resting on Buck’s massive body. The Marines doing their best to cushion the girls from the jarring ride. The Land Rovers gaining on them every second. Her decision to stop and fight. The sudden deafening noise and rush of air. Dust billowing around the truck like a dancer’s skirt. The fucking gigantic helicopter with MARINES in huge letters across the side, landing on what passed for a road, between them and the Land Rovers.

“Ma’am?” Mike Jr. said, bringing her back to the Ramsey living room.

“The helicopter waiting across the border picked up our chatter. They went against orders and came after us. Landed between us and the Rovers.” Honey used her hands to show the positions of the truck and the chopper. “We were climbing in on one side and the crew was laying down fire from the other.”

“It was a hot extraction,” Mason said.

“Yes,” Honey said. “A
very
hot extraction.”

“What kind of chopper?” Mike Jr. said.

“Sea Stallion.”

Mike Jr. nodded. “Big 50 cals and machine gun on board.”

Military kids knew the realities of war, saw the world from a different perspective. Understood more than the average American adult about conflicts. If this were a civilian family, she wouldn’t be talking like this. Hell, she wouldn’t be here. How did these kids maintain friendships with civilian kids? “Yes, and the crew wasn’t holding back using them.”

“Bet you were glad to see that helicopter,” Morgan said.

She suppressed a shutter. Glad and
terrified
. She hated being in those damn things. She’d survived a crash and had rarely been aboard one that hadn’t been fired on. “Sure was.” She forced a smiled. “We were inside in less than a minute.” She paused a moment to make sure her voice didn’t shake. “The trucks were a hundred yards away. We were off the ground about fifty feet”—she leveled a hand at her shoulder height—“and they fired on us. An RPG. The chopper’s flares deployed and the pilots had us safe in seconds.”

“Dumb asses,” Mike Jr. mumbled.

Honey flicked her gaze to the colonel, who said nothing and was probably thinking the same thing.

“Then what?” Mason said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“A crew member gave me his com headset. Pilot wanted to have a chat.” Another pause. Even Ramsey was into the story. She was sure he didn’t know this. “He asked if there was any reason we shouldn’t take out the people who fired on us.” She looked at the boys’ faces, as she had at Kelly’s and Jenna’s in that moment. For the second time that day, with no ping from her conscience, she gave a kill approval. “I said, not a single one.”

Knowing looks spread across their faces. Ramsey grew tense. He knew the possible consequences of this action. Knew what that country’s government could have done and, for whatever reason, hadn’t done. Hadn’t even acknowledged there’d been an incident.

“But, I have to tell you, we both used a lot stronger language,” she said, and the boys gave her grins. “The pilots circled—” Her hand mimicked the turn and she recalled how she pressed her back against the interior bulkhead, bent her knees and braced the soles of her boots on the floor. How she fought back the bile and fear and prayed the Stallion’s huge rotor blades would continue to beat the air into submission and keep them airborne. “The crew made short work of it. Both Rovers blew and we were out of there. The medics on board took good care of your sister until we landed at a medical facility.” As they took Jenna from the Stallion she’d smiled wanly and managed a slight wave. Kelly wasn’t conscious. “That’s it.”

The boys expelled loud breaths and relaxed back onto the cushions. She said nothing. They needed silence to absorb the details of an incident that forever changed their family. In the quiet, the yellow dog crept into the room and nuzzled Morgan’s hand. The boy returned the affection, absently scratching the animal’s ear.

Ramsey stood. “You guys have anything else to say to the major?”

They looked at one another. “Thanks for giving us the inside story,” Mason said. His brothers nodded.

“That it?” Ramsey said.

They nodded like bobble heads.

“Then out,” Ramsey ordered. “Go back to watching the game.”

A trio of
yes, sirs
and they hustled from the room. Mike Jr. stopped at the door and turned. A boy on the edge of manhood. He gave Honey what she called the man nod of approval and she tipped her head in response.

“Nice boys,” Honey said, expecting Ramsey to sit. He shoved his hands in the back pocket of his jeans.

“Yeah.” He looked after them. “Thanks for telling them. You did a good job not getting into the gore.” His gaze scanned the room, as if looking for someone. Jenna maybe.