The Hunted One (Falcon Falls Security), page 3
Everything that happened last night felt more like a dream, well, a nightmare, than reality. She had no idea when the denial stage would end, but did she even want it to?
“At least I’m free from the candy and cookie contests today,” she joked when A.J. had yet to respond, and after another beat of silence, her mind wandered back to the aftermath of the incident.
Jesse had convinced Beckett, the infamously growly sheriff of a small town outside of Birmingham, as well as Savanna, not to call the local PD. And for some insane reason, they’d both agreed. As for where the dead body was now, she couldn’t even fathom a guess. Savanna had stayed at Jesse’s house last night, choosing not to tell Ella, at least not yet, what had happened so as not to put her in danger. Beckett had suggested she stay with him, but he had a young daughter, so that was also out of the question.
Because what if Jesse was right and someone was after her? She’d never forgive herself if anyone innocent were to get caught in the crossfires of her problem.
But what problem? Yet another question she didn’t have an answer for, and the more she thought on it, the less sense it made.
“The man Jesse killed had no ID, nor did he have a gun or phone on him,” A.J. finally answered. “We have a photo of his face, though, and my team ran it through our facial recognition software program earlier. We got a match on one of the airport security cameras the day before the attack. International terminal. Still working on an ID and his original location.”
“I take it this is why you hopped on a plane from D.C. Because someone from another country was inside my house?” She sat upright and hugged her knees to her chest to try and comfort herself.
“I’m here to check on you, Savanna, of course. But yeah, anyone attacking you makes my blood boil. But someone coming from overseas to go after you, well, that has me more on edge.”
She let go of a deep, sobering breath. “Is that why they didn’t have guns? They’d flown here commercially from wherever?”
“Most likely.” This was probably business-as-usual for A.J., but it wasn’t for her. Not at all. But not a day went by that she didn’t still worry about Marcus’s former teammates. She couldn’t lose any of them. The idea of something happening to me, though, I never considered that.
“What could those men possibly want from me?” she asked, somewhat incredulously, when the news that three men hopped an international flight to come for her had finally sunk in.
“I don’t know, darlin’. At least not yet, and this is outside of Beckett’s wheelhouse.”
“It’s right in line with yours, though.” She collapsed back onto the bed of leaves she’d made and closed her eyes, trying to stave off full-blown panic mode for a bit longer.
“The problem is that POTUS called at zero nine hundred hours and ordered both Bravo and Echo to spin up tomorrow. There’s some dicey shit going down overseas, and we’re needed. I’m so sorry. I hate leaving you after what happened, but it’s wheels up for me tonight.”
“The President needs you. I would never ask you to stay.”
A.J. was sitting upright now, and he reached for her arm, urging her to sit and face him. “You know I’m not about to abandon you.” He pushed his sunglasses into his hair. “But I do have the next best thing to me. Remember Wyatt’s wife’s brother, Gray? He now co-runs a security company with a former Delta guy.”
Wyatt and A.J. were part of Echo Team, whereas Marcus had been on Bravo. It still amazed her that these guys were putting their lives on the line every day to handle operations the world would never know about.
“I’m going to call in a favor. Hopefully, I can get them here by the end of the day.”
No, that wouldn’t work. “Thank you, A.J., but I can’t afford to pay some guys to protect me.”
“First of all, you’re not paying anyone anything. And secondly, if I’m going to be overseas doing shit that technically I can’t talk about, I need to leave you in good hands. Not that I don’t trust Jesse and my brother, but this isn’t—”
“In their wheelhouse.” But based on what she’d seen of Jesse last night, maybe it was?
“And also, I’m not just asking them to protect you. I need them to isolate the threat and handle it.”
“Kill more people, then, huh?” The memory of the dead guy would be haunting her dreams for quite some time. She shivered despite the warmer-than-average day.
“Jesse did what any of us would have done. He had to protect you,” he said in a firm voice, backing his childhood best friend’s decision to end a life.
“Where did Jesse learn to do what he did? I don’t think even Marcus was capable of those moves, and Jesse has been retired from the Army for years now.”
A.J. looked off toward the forest in the distance. What was he hiding? “You sure you have no clue, no matter how small, as to why those men were in your place?”
“No, and you know I’ve never even left the U.S.”
He frowned. “Well, you have my word we’ll figure this all out and keep you safe.”
Her eyelids fell closed, and she hugged her knees again. “Marcus gave me his word too. I made him promise I’d die before him.”
A.J. wrapped his arm around her back and brought her to his side. “And that’s one vow no man in love would ever want to keep.”
Chapter Three
Off-the-grid location in Pennsylvania
Griffin stripped free of his rucksack and gear, and hissed under his breath, frustrated and annoyed with his aching body for having the audacity to be such a whiny baby. He was only thirty-nine, but after the grueling morning, he felt as old as Methuselah. He grabbed two Motrin from one of the desk drawers nearby and dry-swallowed them. Back in the Army, he used to pop them like candy. But today, hell, the last two weeks, he’d been feeling more like a new recruit, and it sucked.
Griffin peered over at his boss, Carter Dominick, curious as to what thoughts were running through his head. He was leaning against the ATV they used to travel through the tunnels when in a hurry to escape what Griffin liked to joke was Batman’s lair.
Their new base of operations was hidden inside the Pocono Mountains near Bushkill Falls. The bunker was constructed during the Cold War as a nuclear fallout site by some tycoon back in the day.
Griffin lifted his gaze, wondering if there had ever been stalactites above him before the bunker had stamped out nature altogether, and there were only clean lines and hard man-made surfaces from wall to wall. Well, until you reached the exit tunnels, and then it felt more like they were inside a network of caves.
He didn’t bother to ask his boss how he could afford this place or who he’d acquired the bunker from, especially at the last minute. Carter kept everything close to the vest and on a need-to-know basis, and he never talked about himself. He also refused to acknowledge the rumors that he had piles of cash tucked away in about every pocket of the earth as if he were saving up for a Noah’s ark-sized rainy day.
Since Carter’s life had been splashed all over the news years ago, he was somewhat of an open book in that regard. That is, if the media stories were to be believed, which Griffin wasn’t so sure. So, he opted not to bring up the man’s painful past. It wasn’t like Griffin wanted to talk about his own life or the ghosts that haunted him.
“Are we done making sure these boys can hang with us?” Griffin asked Carter, hoping for an affirmative.
Carter stroked his dark beard, eyes carefully tracking the other three men inside the bunker. “They weren’t required to undergo and survive the navigation phase of selection like we were. I have to make sure they can hack it.”
The navigation phase, designated the “stress test” of selection into the Army’s most elite unit, meant carrying a too-damn-heavy rucksack through the Appalachian Mountains using an old-school map and compass to complete a forty-mile mission. The test required you to make it to the rendezvous point by a specified time. One minute late and you were out. It was a hell of a lot harder than it sounded, and ninety percent of the guys quit before moving on to the psychological evaluations, where more would drop like flies. Landing a position with the Unit, commonly known to the public as Delta Force, was considered next to impossible.
“And you had to drag me along for the ride, huh? I was twelve years younger than I am now when you and I qualified back then.” Griffin turned his attention to the other three team members Carter had somehow acquired at a Navy SEAL’s wedding of all places.
“Well, I need a massage. Or maybe an ice bath. Or both,” Oliver said around a yawn. Oliver Lucas was basically the reason why Carter began working with the two other men, Gray Chandler and Jack London.
Oliver had had some shit luck this year while working a bodyguard gig in Dubai, and Griffin and Carter had assisted a group of SEALs in what amounted to a rescue mission to ensure Oliver didn’t wind up executed by the Saudis for a crime he didn’t commit. Being a good ol’ Army boy and in need of a job, Carter had offered him one. But Gray Chandler, who ran a security firm out west, also wanted Oliver on his team.
From what Carter told Griffin, they’d argued over Oliver in the midst of the wedding reception, and in a bizarre turn of events, the men had decided, then and there, to join forces.
And although Gray was going to co-run the new team with Carter, Carter liked to be a serious pain in the ass to new recruits.
He’d been one hell of a hard-ass to Griffin last year when he’d recruited him despite the fact they’d gone through selection together twelve years ago. Carter hadn’t had an official company per se when he’d offered Griffin a job, but apparently, during the years since Carter had left the CIA, he’d been handling missions of his own choosing with men from all over the globe.
And now the plan was for his people to work alongside Gray’s, but based on the last two weeks of training, Griffin wasn’t so sure that would pan out.
Gray and Jack were more old-school Army, and Griffin assumed the rest of their men back in California were of the same garden variety. Whereas Carter was the definition of a wild card, which was what had drawn Griffin to working with him. That and the six-figure income.
“Now that we proved we can, uh, hang with you fuckers,” Jack began, winking at Griffin just to be an ass, “when do we spin up on our first job? My trigger finger is itchy.”
For some reason, he and Jack had been butting heads since the moment they began training together two weeks ago. He couldn’t imagine working alongside Jack out in the field, considering he’d wanted to kill him more than a few times while running practice missions and field training with the man.
Gray wasn’t so bad. And damn, for a guy who’d lost part of his leg in a helo crash while serving, he kept up with everyone. Passed a few of them on the trails too.
“We’ll be back at this again tomorrow,” was all Carter said as he pushed away from the vehicle and twirled a finger in the air, signaling for them all to get the hell out.
“So, that’s a no on being done with training, then?” Jack asked with a touch of humor to his tone.
Carter took a knee when Dallas, his Alaskan Malamute, headed toward him after jumping off the leather couch at the center of the place that was loaded with enough artillery to weaponize Philly.
“I don’t think we’re meshing all that well based on what I’ve seen in the field,” Carter explained, which was an understatement. They weren’t jiving together at all. “We can’t operate until we can learn to trust each other.”
Oliver unstrapped his vest full of mags as he said, “Well, I don’t have any trust issues. But I think these two boys do.” He stored the vest in its place and waved a finger between Jack and Griffin.
“We should probably divide into teams. East and West Coast. We’ll head back to Cali and stick with our other team members out there,” Jack suggested, ignoring Oliver’s comment or maybe speaking up because of it. “You guys stay here in your Batman bunker.” Jack shot Griffin a lopsided smile. “How about we divide into the Spartans and Trojans?”
Griffin lifted his palms in the air and stepped closer to the comedian. “I’m not a condom company, and based on that smart mouth of yours, you probably don’t have any use for them. Doubt you’re getting laid.” Even if the ass did look like Ryan Reynolds, the actor everyone seemed to love. Well, not me. Not anymore.
Jack barked out a laugh and locked eyes with Griffin, then said, “Projecting much, Griff?” Yeah, there was something simmering behind his eyes. Griffin had hit a nerve, hadn’t he?
But Carter wanted them to work together, so he’d back off out of respect for his boss.
“Military call signs, then?” Oliver proposed, and now they were all standing around Carter and Dallas.
“Nah, twenty years in the Army, bro, and I’m done with all the acronyms.” Griffin was a bit more polite this time since he was speaking to Oliver, and there was no tension between them. Not that he knew what Jack’s beef with him was, but it was there-there-fucking-there. Maybe I should ask? He thought about it for a hot second. Nah.
Jack snapped his fingers and nodded. “I think Oliver’s right.”
“Okay, how about three teams. And you can be a one-man show.” Griffin returned his attention to Jack. “Let’s go with whiskey, tango, foxtrot. Because what the fuck, man.” Griffin shook his head, remembering how many times he’d repeated those words over comms during his years in service. Back then, there was a constant stream of WTF moments, especially when the brass ordered the Unit to do some dumbass shit they often disagreed with.
“We’re not dividing into teams,” Carter spoke up, taking command of the room while rising to his feet, and Dallas hurried back over to the couch. “Gray and I agreed we’d stick together as one unit. I have plenty of other men positioned around the globe if we need backup, but the five of us should—”
“Get our heads out of our asses and start acting like we’ll take a bullet for each other if need be,” Gray finished for him in a serious tone.
Jack peered at Griffin from where he stood next to Oliver a few feet away, giving him the stink-eye as if he were about to pop off a smartass answer instead of Roger that. “If I survived years of marriage to my ex, I guess I can survive this new, uh, situation.” He turned and went to one of the desks set up in the space, and a second later, music began to play from the computer speaker.
“We still need a company name, too, right?” Oliver asked as he strode over to the couch, sat next to Dallas, and began scratching him on the head. “Not splitting into teams works for me. Call signs are probably going to be needed. But what is the company name? We sticking with Chandler Security?”
This had Carter flashing a smile, which came across as slightly menacing, considering the man rarely smiled. “No. Gray and I are still negotiating the whole fifty-fifty thing, and since I’m funding this team, I’ll be damned if we call our organization Chandler Security.”
Gray’s eyes fell to the ground. He was resisting getting into an argument with Carter, wasn’t he? “We’ll figure it out.” He turned in Oliver’s direction. “What’d you go by when you were in the 82nd?”
Oliver had been Airborne, which meant Griffin and Oliver most likely crossed paths at some point at Ft. Bragg in the past, but it was a big damn base, so he didn’t remember him.
“Kodak.” Oliver held his palms to the sky as if it were self-explanatory how he’d earned the nickname. “I have a photographic memory. Well, as close to one as possible.”
Gray motioned to the comedian. “Jack was Ace.”
“Play poker?” Oliver asked him. “I’m down for a game whenever.”
“Nah, it’s because I always have an ace up my sleeve.” Jack’s eyes remained steady on Griffin, though.
What the hell is that look about? “Midas,” Griffin offered. “Got the golden touch. Always get my guy.” He smiled. “Or woman.” And damn, speaking of women, he needed to get laid. It was only two p.m., so maybe he’d drive into Philly, which was a little over an hour and a half away and hit up the bars. Try and get lucky before his balls turned blue, and he developed a new nickname. “What about you?”
Gray scratched his head as if he didn’t want to share, his eyes flitting around the room before he reluctantly said, “Romeo.”
“Ah, mm-hm. Enough said.” Griffin clapped his hands together, ready to get on the road. Well, maybe a shower first. He’d have a better shot at meeting a woman if he didn’t smell like roadkill.
“What about Carter?” Oliver asked as he stood and went to the desk.
“The Devil,” Griffin answered for Carter, knowing the man had scored that name for becoming a legend in Iraq, a man their enemies feared even before his boots stepped off a bird.
“I’m not using that. I’ll think of something else,” Carter replied in a clipped tone, eyes lifting for a brief moment to the ceiling as if his prior legend status weighed on him instead. “And what the hell are we listening to?”
“Bieber. The TikTok version of the song,” Jack said before Oliver could answer.
“You’ve got Bieber on your playlist?” Griffin lifted his brows in surprise. “Well, you just get better and better by the second.”
“What’s TikTok?” Oliver asked, and had he been living in a cave? Pretty much everyone knew of the app that Griffin abstained from using, worried about the safety of his personal information and privacy.
Jack strode up to Dallas and sat on the other side of him. “It’s an app that offers some decent advice, actually. Lots of people that are divorced and now single use it and—”
“And you want me to take a bullet for this man?” Griffin asked Carter, and Jack flipped him the bird.
