The Edge of Courage (Red Team) (18 page)

“Sure. That’d be great.”

“No,” Rocco growled. What the hell was wrong with him? Blade was like a brother to him. Rocco should be glad that Mandy could help him, but all he could think of was her hands on his friend’s thigh.

“I’m a trained physical therapist, Rocco. It’s what I do. Or what I was meant to do, before all of this.” Her voice broke, and it was that thread of emotion that made him relent.

“Then you aren’t doing it alone.”

Blade sighed. “Fine. Rocco can join us, because if he doesn’t, I won’t get the massage. And if Rocco comes, Kit has to as well because he’s too damned curious to be left out.”

Kit frowned as if he were no more pleased about Mandy treating Blade than Rocco was. “We’ve got the other guys coming shortly. Let’s get them settled first. Besides, I need to talk to both of you. Rocco, if you have gear down at the bunkhouse, bring it up here. You can bunk with me.” He looked at his sister and added in a grim voice, “Or Mandy.”

Kit’s phone rang. “Bolanger,” he answered.

“Hello, Mr. Bolanger. Glad to see you arrived safely,” came a smooth voice on the other end.

Kit hit a couple of buttons on his phone, triggering the voice recorder. “Who is this?” he asked, though he knew the answer. Amir Hadad, lieutenant to a powerful Afghan druglord.

“I am disappointed that you don’t recognize me. I know your name, where you live, who your friends are, what your sister is doing. I know so very much about you, yet you know nothing about me.”

“So enlighten me,” Kit urged.

“My name is not important. What really matters is that I am going to destroy your life as you did mine. First, I will kill your friends, who themselves are guilty of heinous war crimes. And then I will terrify your sister, a process that has already begun. Perhaps I shall offer her protection as only a strong and intelligent warrior can—”

“Well, that eliminates you then, Amir” Kit interrupted the man’s diatribe.

“Ah, so you do know me. I will destroy your village, as you did mine,” the man continued, his voice strident. “It is the will of Allah that justice be granted. An eye for an eye.
Allah
akbar
, Mr. Bolanger.” The call ended. Kit stopped the recording.

Kit looked at Rocco and Blade. “
Allah
akbar
, my ass.” He played the call back. “Amir Hadad is here, in town. He’s watching us.”

Mandy gasped. Rocco reached across the table and took hold of her hand. He could feel her trembling and tightened his grip. “Amir started it, but we’ll end it.”

“Mandy, do you mind if I talk to Rocco and Blade for a few minutes? We’ll go outside.”

Reluctantly, she let go of Rocco’s hand. “Not at all. I’ll get some coffee started.”

Rocco and Blade followed Kit as he moved across the porch and walked into the middle of the wide, circular dirt driveway. He shoved his hands in his pockets, looked at the construction site. Rocco glanced at Blade to see if he knew what Kit was up to. His face revealed nothing, which meant he knew exactly what Kit was going to say.

“What’s going on, Kit?”

“I want to talk to you about joining Tremaine Industries.”

Rocco had mixed feelings about Kit’s new endeavor. The Army’s Red Team Program produced assassins—the coldest, deadliest killers in the service or out of it. Going into business with any number of other sociopaths wasn’t something to take lightly. “Who else is in?”

“Blade’s in.”

Rocco looked at his friend. Blade smiled and shrugged. “What can I say? I like guns.”

“You know Max Cameron, Val Parker, and Kelan Shiozski,” Kit continued. Those were names Rocco hadn’t heard in years, guys he’d completed the Red Team training with. “The others finished the program before Blade and me or came after you. You’ll meet them tonight. Tremaine Industries is a sanctioned company that’s well funded and equipped. Their work led them to the group behind Mandy’s problems. Owen Tremaine wants you, too, because while collectively we know several languages, none of us has your linguistic capabilities.”

“I’m done, Kit. I’m fried,” Rocco told him.

“Don’t decide yet. We’ll talk more about it later, with the rest of the guys.” He looked at each of them. “I think it may be the only way to keep Mandy safe. And we’d be able to complete something we left unfinished in Afghanistan.”

Rocco frowned. “What’s that?”

“Take down Abdul Baseer al Jahni and his little flunky, Amir Hadad.”

* * *

Mandy waited with the guys for the rest of Kit’s team to arrive. Rocco was pacing, which heightened her nervousness. She jumped when Kit’s phone rang.

“They’re here,” he said as he went to open the front door. The dogs started barking when the first of the six men crossed the porch. Each of them was carrying large black equipment cases and heavy duffel bags. When they were all in the living room, the space shrank to half its size. Every one of them was tall, wide, and built for fighting. Though they were dressed in civilian clothes, no one could mistake them as anything but warriors.

Three of them came forward right away to greet Rocco. They grabbed hands and bumped shoulders, pounding each other on the arm.

“Damn, it’s good to see you again,” a tall, black-haired warrior said. He had warm, olive-colored skin with dark brown eyes and arching black brows. His high cheekbones gave him the look of an American Indian. “When we didn’t hear from you, Max and I checked in with Kit. Heard you’d taken a long-term assignment in Afghanistan.”

“Yeah, you were under, what, seven years? Sure took you long enough. But you always were the slow kid in class,” said a man who looked like a Viking warrior.

“Slow kid? What the hell, Val? He smoked your ass in training. He smoked all of us,” the third man clustered around Rocco said. He looked like a pirate with the red bandana he’d tied around his head like a skullcap and his bushy beard and moustache. Blue ink covered his arms in a complex pattern that looked Celtic.

Val grinned. “I’m glad you’re okay.” He paused and gave Rocco a searching look. “You are okay, aren’t you? You look like hell.”

Rocco shook his head and gave them a sheepish grin. “Never could hide anything from you.”

Mandy reached over and slipped her hand into Rocco’s. One by one, the men became aware of her. It was unnerving having all nine of them turn their focus on her. Rocco wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She felt an odd thrill at the thought that he was staking a claim.

Kit glared at him, still unreconciled to the fact that they were together. He made the introductions. “This is my sister, Mandy Fielding and that’s Rocco Silas,” he said for the benefit of the men who hadn’t yet met Rocco. “You guys know Blade. We’ll go around the room.” He thrust a thumb toward the man leaning against the wall. “That’s Owen Tremaine, founder of Tremaine Industries.” His light, blond hair was shaggy and had a slight curl to it. His tan face was weathered and clean-shaven. The fine lines about his ice-blue eyes told a story his mouth would never reveal. His cold gaze met Rocco’s for a long, assessing look before he glanced at Mandy and nodded.

“Mandy, that’s Max Cameron, Tremaine Industries’ systems expert,” Kit said as he indicated the man with the bandana. Shadows darkened his hazel eyes as if he’d seen more of life than he’d wanted to. He looked like a knot of energy. Mandy wondered how he could sit still and be focused enough to be their tech guy.

Next, Kit nodded to the man whose rich butterscotch hair fell in waves from his forehead—the Viking warrior in the trio who’d greeted Rocco. Thick brows framed Caribbean blue eyes. A trim beard and moustache wrapped around his mouth in a way that didn’t quite obscure his dimples. “That’s Valentino Parker, sniper extraordinaire.”

Kit gestured toward a man who appeared to be Puerto Rican, with warm mocha skin and black eyes. “Angel Cordova, Tremaine’s engineer and demolitions expert.” He was built like a wrestler, with arms as wide as her thighs. He had a great square jaw, a mobile mouth with large, white teeth. His hair was thick and wavy, shaved close to his head.

“Kelan Shiozski,” Kit continued, pointing to the next man. “He can move like a shadow,” he told Mandy. Kelan, the third member of the trio around Rocco, had inky, black hair that was straight and fell to his shoulders. He looked like a tribal warrior from long ago.

“Greer Dawson is a systems guy, too.” Greer looked like an all-American suburban athlete, lean and clean-shaven with silky brown hair that curled about his ears. Thick brown brows arched over whiskey-colored eyes.

Mandy looked at each of them as he was introduced. She tried to associate each name with a face, but feared she’d get it scrambled for a while. She’d never seen such a large group of fierce men. She did notice that, except for Owen, each of the other men had acknowledged Rocco with a demeanor that was neither assessing nor judgmental. He was one of them—nothing more needed to be said.

“It’s nice to meet you all,” Mandy greeted them. “Thank you for coming out to help. I don’t really understand what’s going on, but if Kit brought you here, it can’t be a good situation.” She looked at Kit. “We’ve cleared out the basement for you. There are three bedrooms down there, two with double beds and one with two bunks. Then there are two more bedrooms with twin beds in the bunkhouse. Put your team where you want them.”

Kit had them move the cases into the basement and their duffels into the bunkhouse and the bedrooms downstairs. He and Blade were going to take the bedrooms upstairs.

While they were getting settled, Mandy smiled up at Rocco. “Have you decided who you’re bunking with yet—me or one of the guys?” she asked with a saucy smile.

He looked at her, surprised at her invitation. “You ready for that? ‘Cause I’ve been doing fine in an armchair.”

“No more armchairs. You need to sleep.”

“Then I better bunk with one of the guys.”

She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. He laughed and lifted her up into a tight embrace, holding her captive so that his mouth could take hers. She surrendered in his arms, circling his neck with her hands as her lips parted beneath his. Her acceptance of him was the most seductive thing Rocco had ever experienced. Their tongues stroked each other, gently, slowly. Reverently.

He drew back and looked down at her, touching a hand to her face, shocked by the changes she’d wrought in him in such a short time. Good Lord, he was falling hard for this woman.

“Well, it’s a true fact that you’re a hell of a lot easier on the eyes than any of the team. If you have room for me, I’ll stay with you. I can sleep on the floor.”

She smiled and slowly shook her head. “My bed or nothing. Your choice.”

He frowned down at her. “There is no choice, then.”

“Get a room, you two,” Blade growled as he slung his duffel over his shoulder and claimed one of the bedrooms down the hall. “We’ve got a war to conduct not a porn flick to film.”

When everyone was settled and the equipment had been set up, Owen convened a meeting in the downstairs rec room. As the men moved downstairs, Kit pulled Mandy aside.

“Can you give us a few minutes? Owen and I need to bring everyone up to speed. We’ll have you brief us about what’s been happening afterward. Gather up your files covering the construction project and bring them when I call for you. Greer and Max will start digging through them tomorrow.”

“No problem. I’ll be ready when you are.” Mandy collected her files and stacked them near the stairs. She poured herself a cup of coffee in the kitchen and discovered the new team had brought in a ton of food supplies in coolers and bags. She stored what she could in the freezer, fridge, and cupboard, then boxed some of it to take down to the bunkhouse in the morning. It began to feel as if they were preparing for a siege. The whole thing was terribly unnerving.

Downstairs, the guys settled around the room, some sitting on either of the two sofas, some leaning against the walls. Greer and Max turned their desk chairs to face the room instead of the long, white tables loaded with equipment. Owen closed the basement door. “Did you sweep the basement for bugs?” he asked Max.

“We’re clear,” Max said.

Owen nodded for Kit to begin the briefing. “Tremaine Industries provides security and intelligence services to various U.S. government agencies,” Kit said to Rocco. “They’ve been contracted to work on a case out this way involving an Afghan druglord whom Blade, Rocco, and I know quite well—Abdul Baseer al Jahni—and the Wyoming-based organized hate group he’s aligning himself with.” Kit looked at Rocco and Blade.

“Is al Jahni in the country?” Rocco asked.

“We think so. And his hate group of preference is the White Kingdom Brotherhood, or the WKBs.”

Kit sent a look around the room at the rest of the guys. “At the beginning of this year, the three of us, Blade, Rocco and I, executed a kill order to take out a warlord named Ghalib
Halim. Rocco had been positioned to collect intelligence on him. Halim wasn’t merely a village elder, a fierce general, and a Taliban officer, he was also a pivotal link in Abdul Baseer al Jahni’s drug trafficking infrastructure. al Jahni replaced him with Amir Hadad. Amir’s a graduate from the University of Colorado. He is the one facilitating al Jahni’s partnership with the WKB to distribute al Jahni’s heroin here in the U.S.”

“What do we know about the WKB?” Kelan asked.

“They’re a white supremacist gang that’s thriving—in prisons and out—in Wyoming and nineteen other states including California, Florida, and Virginia,” Owen answered. “They have about ten thousand members nationally who are not currently incarcerated. They’re making alliances with any criminal group of any racial mix that helps them grow their power network, including the Mexican drug cartels and Afghan druglords.”

“I gave you the identities of the WKBers who got through to Ghalib Halim,” Rocco reminded Kit. “They bragged to us about getting men in their squad killed while on patrols so that they could be taken by Halim’s men. They caused some of the friendly fire incidents that hit the news. The bastards knew being captured was the only way to get close enough for a meeting with Halim. Their allegiance was only to the WKB, never to their units or their country.”