Final Target (SEAL Team Blackout), page 2
But ever since she called to tell him she wanted to end their marriage, he couldn’t see where she was. She’d deleted the tracker and changed her number.
For three weeks, he’d been calling, trying to text. He even contemplated asking Gunnison’s wife Kit to hack some databases and find her. But he hadn’t stooped that low.
Yet.
Sparrow examined him with a crease between his brows. The line was beginning to cut a permanent fissure into his face.
“We both know this can’t go on, Mustang.”
Using his forearm, Crew swiped some sweat off his forehead. He could try to deny knowing what Sparrow was talking about, but he didn’t dodge problems.
Sparrow pointed at a bench.
Crew sank to it. “I’m working through it, man.”
Sparrow cocked a brow. “Are you?”
“Yeah.”
“Working out several times a day—”
“Twice.”
“Looking at your phone nonstop, hoping to find a message from her.”
Crew didn’t bring up the tracker he wasn’t allowed to have on the wife he wasn’t supposed to have either. “There’s nothing else to do. Unless you count watching the game or playing Go fucking Fish.”
Sparrow’s mouth twisted.
Crew looked away. “I’m doing my best here. Isn’t there a side op I can take? Put me on Charlie team for a while.”
“Charlie’s sitting too. And most of us are enjoying the break. We’ve been hunting terrorists and smashing skulls for years, damn near nonstop.”
Another way of reminding Crew that he was the newbie on the team. They all accepted him, but he always felt the weight of taking Bridger’s spot…and the reason for it.
“Look, I get it,” Sparrow went on. “A mustang’s gotta run. But we all see how much you’re struggling. Maybe you should—”
Crew cut across him. “If you say the words ‘take a break,’ I can’t make promises about my actions.”
Sparrow inflated his chest. Crew couldn’t help but see him as a father figure with his headstrong child. It was how Crew’s own father would act in a similar situation—if he didn’t believe Crew was dead. Some rules of Blackout still held true for him—he gave up his parents and his brothers.
But not Teigen.
“I get how you must be feeling.”
Crew barely bit back a snarl of rage. “How can you when you have your wife?”
Sparrow leveled a stare at him. “We’ve all faced losses on this team. Every. Single. One of us. We gave up our families just to be here.”
He sliced his fingers through his hair, damp with sweat. “So did I. It’s just that with Teigen, I’m losing my mind. All I want to do is talk to her and ask her what went wrong. I just…” His throat closed and he gurgled, “want my wife back.”
Sparrow started to speak, but Crew broke in again.
“And if I can’t have her back, then I want an op. Now.”
Sparrow looked at him for a drawn-out heartbeat. Then he stood. “This is why we don’t have wives. They’re a distraction. And you look like hell.”
“Yeah, well, how would you feel if you couldn’t get in touch with Gia?”
Sparrow moved to the door. “I’d feel the same way. When she was in danger, I was losing my goddamn mind, Mustang. But your situation is different.”
Pain slammed into Crew. Yeah, Teigen wasn’t being hunted by Abubakar or caught in the crossfire. She just didn’t want him anymore.
Sparrow stopped and turned to him. “How long were you together?”
“Not even a full year before I signed Blackout papers.”
“And your courtship?”
He swallowed the lump that kept forming in his throat. “I was on short leave.”
“In other words, the world’s fastest courtship.”
“They don’t call me Mustang for nothin’,” he grumbled.
“No, that’s because you’re reckless. Which is what scares me, Spence. If you mess up, someone can get killed. I need you sane. Work on it.” Without another word, Sparrow left the gym.
Crew blew out the hot, pent-up breath he’d been holding, but his chest only seized more. His commanding officer was right. He couldn’t keep hashing through all this. He had to let Teigen go.
It would be a hell of a lot easier if he had someone to fight. Anything was better than his own personal, internal war.
* * * * *
The hot desert air stirred around Teigen’s loose-fitting clothes. She was rushing. She needed to slow down.
The first rule of these clandestine missions was not to draw attention to oneself, and running through the market stalls of Port Said, Egypt would definitely draw attention of the wrong kind.
A heated prickle on the back of her neck had adrenaline pouring into her veins. Someone was following her.
No, she was just being anxious. These marketplaces were full of crooks and pickpockets. She was only being paranoid.
Her main objective was to get back to the hotel. Was it her or was the crowd edgier too? She’d flown to Port Said for many missions over the course of the past year. She knew every inch of the market. Some of the vendors in the stalls even remembered her. She didn’t think that was a good thing, and her handler would kill her if he found out, even if nobody knew her real name.
Nothing about Teigen was real. Not even her hair. She’d dyed her naturally red-brown hair a darker shade, trying to blend in more with crowds just like this. Brunettes were a dime a dozen in the world. People with reddish-brown hair tended to stick out.
She paused at a stall with piles of rich, beautiful fabrics. The handwoven cloth in bright colors didn’t hold a bit of interest to her, though. As she flipped through the stack, she sent a sidelong glance at the street.
Her whole body went numb with fear. The man was still following her.
He’d stopped to examine some wooden trinkets a few stalls away, but Teigen had been trained to recognize someone on her trail when she saw it.
A group of men stopped to talk in the middle of the market, and their loud laughter jolted her, but she managed not to jump.
Ducking her head, she continued to examine fabrics in bright saffron yellow and crimson red, using the time to concoct an escape plan.
A stream of people cut off her view of the man she’d seen far too much of since she entered the market. This was her chance.
She darted away from the fabric stall and toward the first alleyway she saw.
But the minute she started into it, she saw her error—it was a dead end.
Being cornered in an alley by the man following her was a very, very bad idea.
Pulling out her phone, she pressed speed dial. Her handler’s gruff voice came on the line.
“I’m being followed,” she whispered.
“Describe the person.”
Her mind tripped over the details. Did she get a good enough look at the guy to find any defining features?
“Egyptian. Approximately five foot nine. Brown hair and eyes.”
“You’ve just described most of the men in the market.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask him to remove his clothes so I can check for birthmarks!”
“Calm down. We’ll get you out of this. I can see you on the cameras right now. Are you able to look over your shoulder so I can get eyes on the man following you?”
She was wired for exactly this reason, and she couldn’t be more relieved that her handler insisted she wear a camera hidden in a small jewelry pendant.
Despite the fact that she was able to be seen on a screen in some other part of the world, she still missed the reassurance that Crew always knew her whereabouts. However, she didn’t want him knowing, she had ways of tricking the tracker.
Their marriage was never going to work. Too many secrets.
He was a SEAL and she was…screwed.
She hurried back toward a food stand in order to circle around and get the man in view of the camera. The strong spices of cooking meat turned her stomach, and she breathed even more shallowly.
“Got him. I’ll send his photo through the facial recognition program. Now get out of there.”
“How?” She battled to keep her tone even.
“Take a left up ahead. That will lead you to the next street. Catch a taxi back to your hotel.”
“Got it.”
“Check in once you reach your room.”
“Copy that.” She ended the call. The left her handler told her to take was only steps away. She felt the scorch of eyes on her back but resisted the urge to turn and look at the man again.
What did he want? She hadn’t blown her cover. She hadn’t even met with the person who was supposed to hand her a flash drive containing secret files to decode. Yet somehow, this man was on to her.
She turned the corner…and was cornered.
Oh fuck. She always knew this was going to go badly.
Three men bore down on her, and not one of them was the guy following her. She looked between them, making sure the necklace cam picked up their faces.
“Excuse me. I’m just trying to get to the next street to meet my husband,” she said in Arabic. Good thing she hadn’t taken off her wedding band. It would work to her advantage now.
One man pushed closer to her while his cronies closed in from behind. Panic swept her, but she coolly cast a glance around, searching for a way out of this.
She repeated herself in French. When that didn’t work, she switched to English.
Three sets of eyes drilled into her.
Her lungs felt as if they were stuffed with sand. She could hardly get any air in.
Again, she tried to talk herself out of the situation. “Please let me pass. I’m just here to find artisans for my business. I sell jewelry.”
When she was met with more blank looks, she went through French and English again.
She darted to the right, and the men moved with her. She went left.
They moved again.
“Fuck!” she hissed out under her breath.
Of course, that word they recognized. Their eyes narrowed. Hers flew wide as hands clamped down on her arms. One slid around her mouth, cutting off her scream.
She was more screwed than she’d first thought.
She wasn’t going to walk away from this.
TWO
Crew stared at the blank screen of his tracker app. Where the hell was she?
For the past three days since Sparrow told him that he needed to get a grip on reality, he’d been trying to stay off his phone. Stop checking on Teigen.
Now he could say he’d failed at two things in his life: keeping his vow to stop searching for her, and his marriage vows.
His fingers tightened on the device, and he pulled his arm back to hurl it into the street filled with rush hour traffic. But before he launched the phone under the next set of passing tires, he shoved it deep into his jeans pocket instead.
Having a place of his own in the city would be a nice escape, but he’d never bothered to rent an apartment. Blackout headquarters always worked for him. He only required a bed and a shower. Besides, he always had the beach house to run to. The bungalow a block from the beach had a blue front door that he’d carried her through their first day there, and the beautiful redwood deck with a gorgeous view of the water more than made up for the small rooms.
He shook himself and tuned back in to his surroundings. No crash of waves or ocean air. He faced concrete and car exhaust.
Maybe what he needed was a place of his own to bolt to. Ramsey had his warehouse he turned into a home to rival those in an architecture magazine. Sparrow and Frost and some of the others had more humble lodgings with their wives and girlfriends.
And he had… He looked up at the blocky sign hanging over the entrance to the establishment across the street.
He had Jack Daniels, Jim Beam and any other buddy who wanted to keep him company tonight.
He looked both ways and started into the street, not giving a shit if drivers honked at him for jaywalking. Hell, he didn’t care if somebody ran him over. He was feeling more self-destructive than normal.
He walked into the bar and blinked as his eyes adjusted to the interior. It was one of those old joints given a modern update with wood, glass and lights everywhere. He commandeered a stool and ordered a double. When he tossed it down his throat, he barely gasped at the burn of alcohol.
He ordered another double. The bartender eyed him but poured the drink. Crew gave him a nod and tipped the whiskey into his mouth. Stretching his lips over his teeth, he glanced around.
Of course there was a TV with the game he never seemed to be able to escape these days. People in suits enjoying happy hour after what was most likely a long, shitty week. At least he didn’t have an office job like his kid brothers. Both worked in IT for two different firms. Christmases with them were always a drag because their dad shared their interest in technology and their mom was proud as hell of the professions her sons had chosen.
At first, they supported Crew’s decision to join the Navy. Later when he went to SEAL training, they stopped being so supportive. Why did he want to do that when he could go into business the way his brothers did?
It had been hard as hell to sign those Blackout papers and let his family believe he was dead, but it would have been worse on his parents to lose one of his brothers instead.
He tapped two fingers on the slightly sticky wood top to get the bartender’s attention. He walked over, eyeing Crew’s empty shot glass.
“Gimme another.”
“You need to slow down, buddy.”
Settling his most intimidating glare on the man, Crew slowly nudged the glass across the bar.
He snatched up the bottle of whiskey. “Last one for an hour,” he warned him as he poured.
Crew didn’t leave. He drank that shot and sat there until the bartender agreed to serve him another. By the time he was starting to feel the buzz, the game was over and a news report came on. He watched the screen, hoping to see bombs and air raids—any threat that would drag him off this barstool and put a weapon in his hand.
But it was just the same old news stories, so he ordered another drink.
He started to raise the glass to his lips but a hand gripped his forearm.
He sent a glare at whoever was stopping him and focused on Sparrow.
“The fuck you doing here?”
He let out a menacing noise. “I’ll let that go for now.”
“Time to go, Mustang.” The female voice from behind could only belong to Lena, the only woman on the Blackout team.
He swung his head to see Lena standing next to Sparrow. “I’m not going anywhere. Not drunk enough yet,” he mumbled.
“Get him,” Sparrow ordered Lena.
Together, they dragged him off the stool. He could have sworn he saw the bartender nod in thanks right before his teammates shoved him through the bar and out the door.
Cooler air washed over him but it still reeked of exhaust and garbage too.
They propelled him toward a car and shoved him inside. “You can sober up on the plane,” Sparrow said as he started the engine.
His ears perked up. “Plane? Where are we going?”
“We have an op.”
Ten minutes later, Crew had half a coffee Lena forced on him in his system and he’d burned off enough alcohol to pack his gear and head out with the rest of his team.
Once he was on the plane, he was even more aware of the way his teammates found him. Hell, he’d be embarrassed if he actually gave a shit anymore.
After the seatbelt sign switched off, the team headed into a room at the tail of the plane where meetings were held. He collapsed into a chair and Lena put another coffee in his hand. When he took a sip, he made a face.
“It’s instant. What, you thought you’d get a good quality brew? Suck it up, buttercup,” she told him.
Sparrow and Bishop started briefing them on the op. Rescue. A woman. Great.
She was a codebreaker, knew lots of stuff. Highly trained.
She was also deep undercover, so no picture to share.
By now, Crew was sober and locked into his orders. Find a woman, rescue her from her captors and get her out of Egypt.
He pushed away the half empty cup of watery instant coffee and centered his attention on Sparrow. He would apologize for his actions later. Right now, he was ready to break up the monotony of the past three and a half weeks by doing some good again. Something besides wallowing in his shitty private life.
“You good now, Mustang?” Sparrow asked.
When he turned his head to look at his commanding officer, he caught Lachlan’s shit-eating grin.
“I’m good.” He shot Lach a glare. “How do we confirm the identity of this woman without a photo?”
“There’s a safe word,” Sparrow said.
Crew went still. “Safe word.”
“Yeah.”
“What is it?”
“Wasabi.”
The word blasted Crew right in the chest. If he’d still been sitting on that barstool, he would have crashed onto the floor.
That furrow settled between Sparrow’s brows. “Think you can remember that?”
Remember it? He’d been using that safe word ever since he married Teigen. It was her safe word in case things got too rough in the bedroom.
He’d never be with her like that again.
He fended off image after image of his wife.
It couldn’t be Teigen, though. She was back in Virginia, pretending they hadn’t been so damn in love from first sight that they couldn’t live without each other another day. For all he knew, it was all a sham and she’d been swept away by the excitement of being married. Hell, she might have picked up that safe word from a woman’s magazine. Half of America could be using it.
Crew snorted. “Yeah. I think I got it.”
He was glad for the mission…but why did everything have to remind him of what he lost?
* * * * *
When Teigen was recruited by the CIA to do some translation work, she should have asked for more pay. Also “some translation work” really meant breaking codes. She was okay with that…but being tied up in a dank cell in a bunker was not in her job description.
