Protecting the Future (SEAL of Protection Book 8) (5 page)

“Ice—” Wolf began, but Caroline talked over him.

“I’m over what happened to me, we’ve talked about it, and I spoke to that therapist last year when I started having those nightmares, but there’s something about this woman that gets to me. I heard her brother’s interview with that talk-show host the other night. She joined the Army Reserves because she wanted to serve her country on a larger scale than being a firefighter did. Her brother says she’s an excellent firefighter. She’s worked her butt off and all the guys respect the hell out of her. She can make it through this, she’s just waiting for some help. And who better to help her than you? And Hunter, Christopher, Sam, Faulkner, and Kason? You guys have all helped your women get out of shitty situations, so I know this will be no different. But please, do me a favor, Matthew.”

“What’s that, Ice?”

Caroline noticed he was careful to neither confirm nor deny where the team was going.

“This Penelope Turner is someone’s sister. She’s someone’s daughter and friend. She’s just like me. Or Fiona, or any of the others. I know I don’t have to tell you to do whatever you have to in order to get her out of there…because I know you will. She’s suffered enough and she needs to come home.”

Wolf leaned down and gathered his wife to his chest. Fuck, he loved this woman. She could be railing at him to be careful, or crying because she was upset. Instead she’d already taken an unknown woman under her wing as if she was a part of her posse. She had more love inside her than any other woman he’d ever known.

“Okay, Ice.” It was as close as he’d ever come to breaking his top-secret government clearance.

He felt Caroline nod against his chest. She obviously knew he was uneasy with his words because she immediately changed the subject.

“All right then. Come on. You’re leaving in the morning. It’s time for you to make love to your wife.”

Wolf grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

O
n the other
side of the country, Melody woke and saw that Tex hadn’t joined her in their bed yet. She yawned and swung her feet over the side of the mattress, disturbing Baby in the process. But the dog didn’t move other than to lift her head, sigh, and plop it down to go back to sleep.

Grinning at her lazy dog, but thankful she was still around to
be
lazy, Melody grabbed her ratty robe that was more comfortable than anything she’d ever worn, and sauntered out into the hall to find her husband.

Looking into the living room but not seeing him, and ignoring the mess that inevitably came from having an almost-teenager in the house, Melody went down into the basement to Tex’s safe-room office. He’d set it up because of the extra security his computers warranted, and also, in his words, just in case they needed it for protection.

She pushed open the door Tex had left ajar, knowing she’d probably miss him in their bed and come looking for him. Melody saw her husband sitting at his desk fiddling with the mouse. She came up behind him and buried her face in his neck, giving him a chance to blacken the screen if there was something on there he didn’t want her to see.

She’d learned over the last year and a half to let him have the privacy he needed. She didn’t want to know half the stuff he did. She was better off
not
knowing.

“Everything okay?”

“Hummmm.”

Okaaaay, that meant no. “The team?”

“They leave in the morning for a mission.”

Melody waited.

“It’s not going to be good.”

Melody wasn’t sure what to say. Tex helped lots of Special Forces teams across the country. She figured he meant the SEAL team from California since he didn’t specify which team…since she was closest to them. Wolf and his team, and their wives and children, meant the world to them both, and hearing that the guys would be headed out on a mission that was “not going to be good” was very bad indeed.

“What can I do?”

Tex turned in his chair, grabbed Melody and pulled her so she had no choice but to straddle him. Her legs bent at the knees and fit into the spaces by his hips on the chair. He pulled her into him until they were groin to groin and chest to chest. He slowly undid the knot of the belt on the robe and pulled it open. He knew she’d be naked underneath. She liked to sleep that way as much as he enjoyed finding her that way when he joined her in bed.

He slipped his hands around her waist and buried his face in her cleavage. Tex felt Melody’s hand clasp the back of his head as she held him to her.

“I love you. I love that you don’t ask questions, but the first thing you say is ‘what can I do?’ I love that you miss me enough when I don’t come to bed that you come looking for me. I love that you didn’t even flinch when I said I wanted to adopt a handicapped, pre-adolescent girl from Iraq that I’d never even met. Most of all, I just love you. Every last inch of you. And to answer your question, there’s nothing we can really do. Just wait and pray. You might call the girls a bit more, and if you feel up for it, you might even take a trip out there.”

“Can you come too? I know they’d love to see you.”

Tex shook his head. “I’d love to see them, but I need to be here. Watching. Waiting. I want to be here with my computers and servers in case they need me. And I have a bad feeling they
will
need me.”

“Oh, Tex. You aren’t Superman, no matter what Alabama’s daughters call you.”

“I know, but the hair on the back of my neck is sticking up and I’m certain they’re gonna need my help where they’re going.”

Melody studied her husband. They’d taken a very long vacation after an ex-classmate, Diane, had been arrested for stalking her. They’d driven out with Baby to Las Vegas and gotten married, just as they’d planned. Diane had managed to kill herself in prison while awaiting trial, something Melody knew she should’ve been upset about, but couldn’t bring herself to be.

“I expect you to tell me what you need from me until they’re home. If you need me to bring your food down here, I will. If you need me to leave you alone, I will. If you need a quick fuck, I’m your girl. Just don’t block me out. You have a tendency to get a bit single-minded when you’re working, and because these are your friends, I’m worried you won’t take care of yourself. You need to stand up and walk around every hour. Don’t forget to take off your prosthetic every now and then. In fact, I’ll send Akilah down to remind you, and you two can clean and massage your stumps together, and—”

Tex cut Melody off by pulling her face to his and kissing the stuffing out of her. “Thank you for taking care of me. If I get too absorbed, I give you permission to get in my face.”

“All I’m asking is, don’t be a stranger. You know Baby misses you when you get too deep into your work.”

Tex smiled. “God forbid the dog misses me.”

Melody smiled back. “Okay, I miss you too.”

Tex ran his hand down Melody’s chest, not missing how her nipples tightened at his touch. “I’ve got a while before the mission starts…have any ideas on how we can pass the time?”

Melody smirked and pushed into Tex’s hand, encouraging him to continue his caresses. “I might have an idea or two. I’m not sure we’ve tested this particular chair before, have we? Think it can hold up if I take you right here?”

“Now’s a great time to try it and see.”

C
ommander Hurt studied
the orders from the President. He wasn’t happy about the mission. He hated having to send his SEALs into an unknown situation. Oh, it happened a lot, but this time the situation wasn’t just unknown, it was unstable, full of hate, and they were being set up to fail. Trying to find an American woman, dressed in a burka, in the middle of a refugee camp, filled with other women wearing similar outfits, would be next to impossible. Not to mention the disease and unsanitary conditions that were running rampant in the crowded, filthy, treacherous camp.

Four hundred thousand people in a camp in the middle of the hot desert—scared, worried and unstable—was a recipe for disaster. The only redeeming factor for the mission was that it was under JSOC command. Joint Special Operations Command was in charge and the mission would involve another SEAL team based out of Norfolk, an Army Ranger team, the Army Night Stalkers would pilot the helos, and, if needed, a Delta Force unit was on standby.

The President’s constituents weren’t happy that Penelope had been kidnapped and was being used as a pawn in ISIS’s deadly game. The world had seen way too many videos of the torture the terrorists put their captives through, and it would be a huge public relations nightmare if Sergeant Penelope Turner ended up in one of those gruesome videos. She was now the country’s sister, daughter, friend, and the face of this horrible new war.

Her family, most especially her brother, had been pushing hard and gaining the support of many influential politicians to go in and find his sister. Homeland Security had received enough credible reports that the woman was being held in the refugee camp for the President to authorize a rescue attempt.

“Are you all right, Patrick?”

He turned and held out his arm and sighed when his wife, Julie, snuggled into his side. He felt one arm snake around his belly and the other around his back.

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“I don’t think you are. Is it my SEALs?”

Patrick smiled at Julie’s terminology. She knew he commanded several different SEAL teams, but she always referred to Cookie and the rest of the men as “hers” since they’d rescued her from Mexico.

Over the years, she’d remained friendly with all their women. She helped Jessyka match up some of the teenagers in the after-school program with prom dresses. Summer had gotten Julie’s store included in her company’s annual donation campaign, and Julie and Cheyenne emailed each other all the time.

Patrick knew her relationship with Fiona took a lot of hard work to cultivate. She didn’t push, but went out of her way to make sure Fiona knew she was thinking about her and to try to be friendly. Just as Patrick had predicted, Julie and his men’s wives weren’t best friends, but they did seem to enjoy each other’s company when they met up at company get-togethers.

“You know I can’t say much, but yes, your SEALs are leaving for a mission in the morning.”

“Should I call Fiona and see how she’s doing? Maybe we should invite her over, make sure she’s okay. I can take some time off from the store. My employees know what they’re doing, and now that I’ve hired some of the teenagers to take my place at the front, I’m really just in the way when I’m there anyway. Maybe I can—”

Patrick leaned down and kissed Julie quiet. When he felt her melt into him, he pulled away. “I’m sure she’d love to hear from you, sweetheart.” When Julie nodded and moved her hand lower until it brushed against his quickly hardening shaft, Patrick smiled down at her.

“Come to bed. I can tell you’re tense, let me help you lose some of that tension.”

“I love you, Julie. I’ll be there in a little bit.”

“Okay, but don’t take too long or I’ll have to take matters into my own hands,” Julie teased.

Patrick leaned down, kissed his wife once again and set her away from him. “Feel free to get yourself off, but know that when I get there I’ll be making you come at least twice before I get my turn…so you might want to pace yourself.”

Julie blushed and backed away, smiling. Patrick watched until she disappeared around the door to his home office, and he turned his attention back to the file in front of him, distracted with thoughts of his wife now, but still concerned for his men.

The commander in him hoped like hell it wouldn’t be a futile mission that would end in the deaths of one, or more, of the finest men he’d ever known. He certainly didn’t want Sergeant. Turner to die at the hands of terrorists, but he especially didn’t want to have to tell any of the women and children of his own men, who he’d come to know and respect, that their husband, or father, wouldn’t be coming home ever again.

Finally, with a small sigh and a quick prayer, Patrick locked the file back into the small office safe and tried to shake off the uneasy feeling he’d had since first seeing the orders. He had a wife to satisfy. He’d take the time to concentrate on her, and on how much he loved her, before having to delve back into the dangerous world of the SEALs the next day. He needed Julie’s brand of relaxation.

W
olf gazed
around the tent at his men. It’d been a tough forty-eight hours. They’d flown to the Middle East, done a HALO—a high-altitude, low-opening parachute drop—to get into Turkey undetected. They’d thought about jumping into Syria instead, but finally decided they’d be stealthier if they came in from the Turkish side and tried to blend in with the other aid workers.

They’d made the landing without issue and headed to the refugee camp near the city of Cizre, Turkey. It was exactly as described by their commander and as the intelligence had reported. It smelled horrible, and sickness was rampant all around them. They hadn’t even been there that long and they’d already witnessed two mothers crying hysterically while clutching their dead babies. None of the team knew what the infants had died from, but ultimately it didn’t matter. Dehydration, disease, starvation…seeing the dead babies reminded them all a bit too much of their families back home.

“What’s the plan for today?” Abe asked.

Wolf laid out the aerial photographs of the camp they’d received back in California. “The best way to do this is a grid search, but we all know, if Turner is here, they’re moving her around. They probably don’t spend the night in the same spot twice or at least more than a couple nights. So a grid search won’t do us much good. We’ll have to cover a lot of ground in this shithole every day so we’ll need to break up into teams. We can cover more area in groups of two than if we patrolled together, and we’ll blend in better. But remember, that’s how we think ISIS got ahold of Turner and the others…they were separated from the rest of the patrol. And we all know ISIS would love to get ahold of a SEAL, so stay on your toes. Everyone has their radios, right?”

The men all nodded, so Wolf continued, “Okay, Benny, you’re with me. Dude and Abe, you’re together, and Cookie and Mozart. Benny and I will take the left side.” Wolf pointed out the area on his map. “Dude, you and Abe take the middle, and Cookie and Mozart, you’re on the right. Cover as much ground as you can, be observant, but not obvious. Turner is small, five foot two. She’s got light-blonde hair, so if it’s not completely covered up, she’ll stick out like a sore thumb around here.”

“What if they
do
have it covered up?” Benny asked seriously.

“Then we’re fucked,” Wolf said succinctly. “If she’s covered from head to toe in robes, or if they’ve got her in a burka, there’s no way we’ll be able to spot her. But be on the guard for groups of young men looking suspicious. Hell, look around. Most people are concerned about food and water; if you see any group of men looking fit and healthy, that’s suspicious. Also, the men are armed. Perhaps blatantly so. Abe, got any other ideas?”

“The American and British troops in the area haven’t been much help. Intel from Commander Hurt says no one really knows where the soldiers were when they were taken and there’s been no sign of Sergeant Turner since she and the others were snatched,” Abe said. He took a deep breath, then continued, “I think we should take the first day or so to get the lay of the land, walk around and see what we can find out. But if we don’t immediately spot her, we should use the interpreters. Fall into the role of aid worker more deeply. See if we can’t find out from the refugees who they’re afraid of. The Syrians aren’t stupid. If they aren’t in ISIS, they probably know who they should keep away from. Since none of us know Turkish, we’ll have to rely on the interpreters.”

Wolf nodded. “Good. Whatever you do, don’t start a war in the middle of the camp. Our objective is to identify the target, and steal her away. We don’t want to start a firefight, otherwise a lot of innocent people could die, and the last thing either government wants is an incident. It’s a snatch-and-grab if we can swing it.”

“What if she’s injured or if she’s been abused?” Dude asked calmly. Although they could all see he was anything but calm.

“We take her however we can. If she freaks out, knock her out. If she can’t walk, carry her. If she’s scared of us, do what you can to reassure her. Whatever you do, get the fuck out as soon as you can. Got it?”

All five men nodded at Wolf. They’d all thought the mission was going to be hell, but now that they were here in person, and could see the living conditions of everyone around them, they were sure of it.

“We’ll set out first thing in the morning. I know none of us have gotten much sleep in the last two days. Sleep tonight and hopefully we’ll be out of this dump sooner rather than later.”

The men settled down on their sleeping mats, each lost in their own thoughts about their wife, kids, and what they might find,
if
they find, America’s Darling, Sergeant Penelope Turner.

T
he next morning
the men were up and ready before the sun came up. They headed out in pairs, ready for anything. Meeting back at the tent they’d been assigned by the aid workers that night, each pair of men reported what they’d observed.

“The west side of the camp looks to be the older side. The shelters are more established and the people there seem more settled,” Cookie told the group. I think it looks promising for the general area where Turner could be held. There wasn’t a lot of love for us as we walked around and when Mozart asked some of the other aid workers about that area, they said they rarely ventured too far into that side because they didn’t feel safe.”

Wolf nodded. “Makes sense. We were on the other side and there were a lot of women and children over there.”

“That could be a good place to hide her,” Dude commented, trying to play Devil’s Advocate.

“Yeah, but most of the men we saw were either very old or very young. It doesn’t seem to be a hotbed of ISIS activity. At least not at first glance,” Wolf cautioned.

“So it sounds like we can stick to the west and middle tomorrow then,” Abe said. “The center of camp seems to be a mix of families, single people, and kids.”

“Did anyone see anything that screamed ‘terrorist camp’ or did you get a glimpse of anyone that could be our target?” Wolf asked the group.

The men all shook their heads. “Not really. The robes and veils make this op almost impossible,” Cookie grumbled.

“We have to find her. I can’t bear to think of her in this shithole at the hands of those assholes,” Dude said, running a hand through his hair.

“We’ll do our best.” Wolf’s words were heartfelt, but they all knew they weren’t enough. They had to find this woman. “We’ll head out first thing in the morning. After tomorrow, we’ll take shifts and walk through the nights as well.”

“I’ll take the first night shift,” Dude volunteered. Wolf looked at his friend critically, knowing Dude wasn’t sleeping well because he was worried about Cheyenne and the pregnancy. He nodded. “That’s fine. I’ll work it with you to start.”

S
ergeant Penelope Turner
was pissed off. She figured she probably should be scared or freaked-out, but honestly? She was just plain angry. As far as being kidnapped and held by terrorists went, she’d been lucky. They’d beaten the shit out of her the first couple of days they’d had her, but after the first video had gone viral, they’d realized she was more valuable as a propaganda tool than anything else.

They’d asked if she was a virgin, and Penelope had thought long and hard about which would be the best way to answer, and finally she’d admitted that she was not. She hadn’t been raped…yet, but figured the men were saving that as a torture technique for later if they needed it.

She’d been forced to read long soliloquies about ISIS’s complaints with the West and America, and honestly Penelope had no heartburn over reading whatever they wanted her to. She’d read
War and Peace
if they asked her to. It wasn’t as if she really believed what she was reading, and figured America in general would probably understand she was being forced to say the things she was.

But she
did
care about her fellow soldiers. She hadn’t seen her friends since they’d been kidnapped. Penelope had no idea how long she’d been in the company of the terrorist group, but thought it’d been around two months.

Thomas Black and Henry White were hilarious. Thomas was from Maine and had red hair and freckles. He frequently joked that he was a down-home “ginger from the north.” Henry was from Mississippi and had the darkest skin Penelope had ever seen on anyone before. They’d been teased by the other soldiers, since Thomas’s last name was Black and Henry’s last name was White, and they were complete opposites of their names. But the men were close friends. They’d bonded the first time they met and had done everything together since they’d arrived in the Middle East. They made an oddly striking pair, but friendship knew no color in the Army. The third man, Robert Wilson, Penelope didn’t know very well, but he’d been friendly enough to her and she worried about him just as much as Thomas and Henry.

She figured they were all probably dead, and that pissed her off even more. These ISIS assholes didn’t have the right to kill anyone, not when
they
were the ones terrorizing the poor people all around them and kidnapping innocent soldiers like her and her friends who were just trying to help the refugees.

Penelope had volunteered to come over to Turkey to help people and provide some much needed help at the camps. Her Reserve unit, stationed out of Fort Hood, Texas, had sent a company of soldiers, around one hundred and twenty people, to help provide security at the camp. From the second they’d landed, it’d been obvious the major in charge of the troops at the refugee camp wasn’t a very good leader. Even though the captains and lieutenants tried to explain how dangerous the security patrols could be, they were still ordered to scout in small groups which could be easily overwhelmed.

She, White, Black, and Wilson had been ordered to patrol the west side of the camp one day, and when she’d protested, claiming it was too dangerous to send them in alone, she’d been reprimanded publically and told to suck it up.

She knew it was because she was a woman and actually had the guts to speak up. If she’d been a man, maybe they would’ve taken her more seriously. But they’d been sent off with the proverbial pat on the head and look what had happened. Penelope was fucking right and she’d been stuck in this hellhole for who knew how long.

Penelope had wanted to escape long before now, but the assholes who’d kidnapped her weren’t actually as idiotic as she’d hoped, or as they’d seemed at first. They moved her almost every night to a different tent. They only allowed her outside whatever tent they were keeping her in if she was covered from head to toe in the flowing robes and garments the women in the region wore.

Penelope knew her blonde hair would give her away if she dared take off the covering. She’d thought about it more than once, simply whipping the material off her head and running screaming through the camp, but she’d seen how the men around her were. She’d either be shot dead immediately, or she’d suffer horribly and wish she was dead long before they were done with her. So far, she hadn’t been raped, tortured, burned alive, or had her head cut off, and she took all of that as a win.

So she was in limbo. Waiting for something to happen.

One good thing—Penelope always tried to find good in every situation—was that the everyday thugs in the camp were scared of ISIS. She didn’t have to worry about them on top of everything else she worried about.

So she waited. Day in and day out, pretending to be meek and scared, while silently seething inside and on the lookout for something, anything, that would get her out of there. If she made it home, and could hug her brother, she’d never step foot outside Texas again.

The sounds of the camp faded around her. They never really quieted all the way, but they did settle down as night fell. Penelope figured most people were scared to walk around when the sun dipped below the horizon, as well they should be.

The door to the tent opened and Penelope quickly looked down, trying not to make eye contact with whoever it was who’d entered her tent. She’d learned the hard way that looking one of the terrorists in the eye only set them off.

“Up,” he grunted.

Some of her guards spoke excellent English, while others knew only the basic words. She thought about trying to send some message on the videos she was forced to record, but knew there were too many people around her and involved with ISIS who knew English. The video would never make it out and they’d probably kill her for daring to defy them. It made more sense to bide her time and pray she’d get the chance to escape or that someone would come to free her.

She stood up at the guard’s request. He shoved the robe at her that she’d been forced to wear every time they moved. “Put it on.”

Penelope sighed. Looked like it was moving time. She hated the robe with a passion. It was hot, and stunk like pee, sweat, and who knew what the hell else. But shit,
she
stunk; she couldn’t really ask for a shower in the middle of the desert.

Moving tents meant uncertainty. She’d been at the same tent now for three nights, an eternity in her world. Penelope held her breath and slipped the foul garment over her head, doing what her captor demanded, and hoped like hell this would end…preferably sooner rather than later, and preferably with her going home, rather than with her head rolling around on the sand after being chopped off.