Forged in Smoke (Red-Hot SEALs #3)(75)

As people stirred and lined up, Cosky headed toward Kait and lifted her to her feet. He held a water bottle to her lips, and once he was satisfied with her intake, he gave her a swift hug and handed her off to Marion, who wrapped an arm around her waist. Zane kissed Beth and joined Cosky. They wove their way through bodies toward the back of the hub.

“It doesn’t feel any different,” Faith said, disappointment in her voice. She gave the rough starburst one final rub between her fingers and dropped it.

“How you doin’?” Rawls asked quietly as he tucked the weaving back beneath his shirt. He reached for her wrist to check her pulse. It beat steady and strong beneath his fingers.

She’d be safer in the middle of the flock, guarded by the front and back flanks. But, if her heart was even the slightest unstable still . . . procedures be damned . . . he’d glue her to his side.

“I’m fine. Honestly.” She pulled her wrist away and made a shooing gesture. “Go. Go.”

Rawls gave her one final, thorough scan from head to toe. Her color looked good. Her eyes clear. She was breathing with ease.

“I’ll be right behind you if you run into trouble,” he told her softly and leaned down, brushing her lips with his. Her mouth was soft beneath his. Satin smooth.

Intoxicating.

Stifling a groan, he forced himself to lift his head and step back. The soft cloudy look in her eyes followed him as he headed back to Cosky and Zane.

“Mac has a point,” Cosky told Rawls and Zane in a low voice, as they slowly followed Amy and her two boys through the hub and into the rock-cut passageway. “How the hell did Jude know Wolf was on the way?”

“You think he’s lyin’?” Rawls asked.

“No. Fuck. Wolf’s here, right?” Cosky slowed, letting Amy and her chattering son increase the distance between them. “But there’s something weird there. Jude showed up at our door before Mac’s nine-one-one hit the radio waves. He said Wolf had contacted him, warned him to get everyone into the tunnels immediately.”

Zane shrugged. “He’s Wolf’s second. Probably has the CO’s sat phone.”

Cosky frowned. “He didn’t have it on him when he showed up at the cabin. And he didn’t have it when he told us Wolf was here.”

Okay. That was odd.

“So what are you thinkin’?” Rawls asked, craning his neck for a glimpse of Faith, but the bounce of flashlight beams ricocheting off the rock walls blinded him.

“Hell, I don’t know.” Cosky scrubbed a hand through his hair and picked up his pace. “Just keep your eyes open.” But then he slowed again and glanced at Rawls out of the corner of his eye. “So this ghost? He around now?”

“Nah, we’re good.” Unconsciously Rawls’s hand climbed, grazing the slight bump lifting his T-shirt where the weaving burned slightly against his skin. “Where we headed, anyway?”

An odd silence greeted the question.

And then Zane gave a bemused laugh. “To the elevators.” At Rawls’s double take, he snorted. “I’m not shitting you. They have a helipad on top of this hill and two elevators from the tunnels to the helipad.”

Two elevators. It would be a hell of a lot quicker to the top of the mountain by elevator than stairs. But what the hell powered them this far from their compound?

“They have a chopper waitin’?” Rawls asked, although he was pretty certain of the answer.

“Two birds,” Cosky corrected him dryly. “And according to Wolf, his team neutralized our visitors and took out their helicopter.”

“Mightily accommodatin’ of ’em.” Rawls drawled.

“No shit,” Zane said, his voice a cross between suspicion and admiration.

But the same question weighted the air between the three of them.

Who the hell are these guys?




“What?” One rigid finger at a time, Eric Manheim forced his grip to relax around his cell phone.

“An unidentified squad of highly trained mercenaries slipped in behind my men and took them out.” His new—and widely acclaimed contractor—delivered the news evenly.

In the midst of a battle, either in the boardroom or out in the wilds of Washington State, one prepared for every foreseeable possibility. Considering his current contractor’s reputation, Eric couldn’t believe the f*cking imbecile hadn’t prepared for this one.

“You didn’t post guards? Mackenzie and his crew got the jump on you?” Eric didn’t smooth the edge from his voice.

“Negative. The targets were holed up in their cabins. This was an unidentified team.”

Eric’s jaw tightened until his entire head throbbed. “How the f*ck would you know? You said you never saw the men who struck.”

His soon-to-be-deceased contractor had the intelligence to remain silent.

Forcing himself to rein in his anger—strong emotions were so unproductive, often blinding you to the possibilities inherent in the moment—he regrouped, and looked for a means to salvage the mission.

“The Chastain boys’ signals are still broadcasting. They’re moving up the mountain. Likely there’s a second entrance into this tunnel system somewhere on top of the mountain and they’ll emerge there”—some of his anger slipped out—“along with those f*cking SEALs. So how about getting your bloody helicopter into the air? Target them from above when they emerge from the tunnels.”