AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I heard you might be leaving us to work for the Company.”
Shit. “Who’d you hear that from? I’ve barely got my feet wet with the team here, why would I leave for the CIA?”
“Because that’s what Rebecca wants,” he said bluntly. “She’s got contacts. Friends at the White House. A lot of them because of her parents. And they’re squawking on her behalf. It made it down the pipeline to Dennison, then to Lopez.”
“All the way to everyone but me, huh?” The idea our team leader, Master Sergeant Lopez, had heard rumors I might up and leave for the Agency was a gut shot I couldn’t stomach right now. I’d need to confront my headstrong wife about the dinners she was throwing with her Washington friends “on my behalf.”
“It was going to get back to you at some point, I’d rather you hear it from me.”
“Learn that my wife is poking around behind my back trying to get me to leave the Army?” Lifting my hands from my pockets, I tore my fingers through my hair. I loved the woman, but damnit . . . “I’m barely ten years in. I have a list of shit I want to accomplish and another ten, at minimum, to give. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You say that, but she’s your wife. And maybe you can hide it from the rest of the guys here, but I can see what this is doing to you. The fact she doesn’t support you being part of this team is fucking with your head.”
He had a point. If I wasn’t a hundred percent, distracted by the guilt hovering like a dark cloud, I could get someone hurt. “What would you do?”
“You’ve known Rebecca for nearly half your life, right?”
“Eleven years.” But it felt like I’d known her forever. “Met at Columbia while I was a senior and she was a freshman. Became friends.” She pushed me to join the Air Force, but at the last minute, I joined the Army instead. “Didn’t start dating seriously until I was a year into my service. Married after she finished grad school.” Recounting the bullet points wasn’t necessary. Not for Griffin. But apparently my conscience needed the trip down memory lane. The reminders of the life we’d shared and how far we’d come.
He slapped a hand over my shoulder. “It’s hard work doing what we do while keeping it together at home. Not that I’d know, being I’m single, but I have eyes and ears. I see and hear what y’all married guys go through.”
“You can’t seriously be recommending I quit and join the Agency because Rebecca wants me to.”
“I’m just saying do what makes you happy. And as long as she’s not happy, you’re not happy.”
I bowed my head, unsure what to think, but leaving the Unit was the last thing I wanted. Well, the last-last thing I wanted was to lose Rebecca. Fuck. He removed his hand from my shoulder. Unfortunately, it didn’t lessen the weight his words left there. “Do me a favor and come spend Christmas with us next month in New York.”
“To help persuade Rebecca you should stay or convince you to quit?”
“To keep me sane when she hosts her fancy dinner parties with her fancy elitist friends in her fancy fucking house.”
“You really hate fancy shit, huh?” He laughed. “Won’t you have Camila there to keep you from going off the deep end?”
Outside of Rebecca, Camila was the only family I had left. The daughter of my parents’ best friends, she’d become like a little sister to me. Always ready to bust my balls and save my ass a time or two.
“No, she won’t be there. She’s got a work thing.” Spy shit. “So, do me a solid and come.” I cursed at the sight of Dennison waving us back in before Griffin could respond, and I pocketed my sunglasses.
“Guess we’re not making it home for Thanksgiving,” Griffin said as we made our way inside.
“We have an emergency situation at the U.S. Embassy here. This is going to be brief, so listen up. We need to head out now.” Lopez was in the room now, and the first to speak. “Truck bombing outside the embassy. Marines and DS are under heavy fire. The ambo didn’t make it to the safe room. She’s being held hostage inside. Same with her daughter who’s in town visiting—but they’re separated on different floors.”
“This is a hostage rescue operation,” Dennison chimed in. “We have a five-story building without many windows. The shape is angular, almost pyramidal, and it’s not ideal for fast-roping in. So, we’ll need to breach another way.”
“What about local police? SWAT? Any help until we can get there?” I asked, already on the move for my weapons bag. One that’d been prepped for a flight home, not for an op.
“That’s the problem,” Dennison answered as I strapped on my plate and vest. “Al-Qaeda members were dressed as local PD, which is how they infil’ed the embassy. And one Marine security guard opened fire on one of the real police officers trying to get in to help after the explosion in the parking lot, creating a fucking mess on top of things.”
“Great, so we can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys when we do get in.” Fucking perfect. I holstered my secondary at my side, a Glock 19, then went for my HK416 carbine, a better rifle for close-quarters combat because of the shorter barrel length. “So, don’t shoot until we’re shot at first.”
Lopez nodded. “CIA intel’s suggesting this is payback for the Bin Laden kill this year, and they’re planning to hit other embassies today, so they’re locking every other site down.”
“Could’ve used that intel before they attacked the embassy,” Griffin grumbled. He wasn’t a fan of the CIA, making my decision to possibly join one day, because of Rebecca’s insistence, that much more painful.
“The Marines are reporting the ambo’s daughter is on the fifth floor being held hostage by two tangos, possibly in explosive vests. Ambassador Mackenzie is on the second floor with an unknown number of tangos armed with AKs and explosives as well,” Dennison shared, eyes on me. “You’ve got the daughter.”
“How old is she? We talking a kid? Five or six?” Fuck, that made my stomach turn. If the guy clacked off his vest, or there was a bomb somewhere inside—screw coming home for Thanksgiving, we wouldn’t be coming home at all.
“Name is Diana Mackenzie, and she’s not a child. She’s twenty, a college student here for Thanksgiving with her mom,” Dennison said while kitting up. “She’s also the Speaker of the House’s daughter. Joshua Mackenzie’s not here, but he’ll have our heads if his ex-wife or his daughter dies today, so don’t let that happen. We clear?”
