Hidden Impact (Safeguard #1)(68)
“There’s got to be a way to know what they’re doing though. You don’t just wait in the dark for them to come home.” Even as she said it, she watched his expression go pleasantly blank. Wow.
“This time. No. We aren’t waiting in the dark.” Caleb met her gaze with his own and it was inscrutable. “If you and Diaz are a thing, it’s important you accept who he is and what he does. Most of the time, not sometimes, you will have to wait with no word until he comes back. Decide if you can handle that.”
Not a light matter.
“I won’t answer that right away, because what you’ve said deserves time to really absorb.” Maybe other people said something different. But she wanted to give it serious consideration, because it was another truth, a reality of who Gabe was. “But this time, you said you weren’t waiting in the dark, and you didn’t say I had to.”
Caleb chuckled, the seriousness evaporating. “Promise you’ll eat something first. The operation won’t start for a while yet, not until 0200 hours. When it does, I also need your word that you’ll stay in the back of the room with me. You have questions, you ask me. Don’t interrupt anyone else no matter what you hear.”
She pressed her lips together. Despite his levity, she got the impression he’d take her right back out of whatever room this was going to be if she couldn’t follow his instructions. If he was taking the time to make this clear to her in advance, it was almost certain there’d be something going on she’d want to question. Could she watch and not ask questions? Not attempt to interfere? A hundred possibilities ran through her head. It was that or sit here waiting.
She wanted to know what was happening. “I promise.”
Caleb dragged his hand through his short cropped hair, rubbing his scalp with his palm. Abruptly, she wondered if he’d stayed the entire time watching over her.
He chuckled. “I’d have never done this before, but I figure you should be there as our good luck charm. You’re the bird dog that flushed up all of this trouble in the first place.”
Chapter Twenty
“One Alpha, in position.” Gabe kept an eye on the corridor, scanning left, then right, and back again as his team crouched around the access to the old air ducts. Literally one eye open since his team had invested in the better-quality night vision gear that covered only one side, allowing the men to retain depth perception and leaving them free to open the other eye in case of a quick change in lighting. It took some getting used to, but allowed for faster reaction time.
It was the edge needed for survival and success, in that order.
“Roger that, One Alpha.” Harte’s voice came low through the comm in Gabe’s ear. “Squad Two in place, maintaining surveillance. You are clear to proceed. Unless you need a minute to recover from the run. It was a long way through those tunnels.”
Gabe grinned in the dark. Sometimes he wondered if he missed the more strict communications practices of active military duty, especially during operations like this one. But then, their frequency was secure and Harte had a good sense of when there was time for banter versus times every word mattered. “A mile or two underground? Didn’t break a sweat.”
“Roger.” Harte might be chuckling, but his words came through clear. “Proceed.”
“Proceeding, sir.” He clamped down on the anticipation driving him to rush forward. There’d been a lot of hurry up and wait to reach this point. His Delta fire team had to break the seal of an airlock fused shut decades prior by the Army Corps of Engineers decommissioning team while Alpha, Bravo and Charlie fire teams stood by on watch. Once breached, Alpha led the way into the tunnel with Bravo and Charlie following, leaving Delta to stand watch at the entrance.
At the entrance to the air ducts, Marc and Victoria had scouted the next stage of entry into the underground complex while he and Lizzy had held their position. Meanwhile, Squadron Two’s fire teams had taken up positions above ground to keep an eye on the site’s activity.
It’d been a lot of waiting. Now that he and his team were inside and on point with a primary plan and a backup, everything they did would be action and reaction. Which was good, because An-mei Cheng had waited long enough.
Using hand signals, he motioned for Marc and Vicky to lead them forward. They crawled through a short stretch of air duct before sliding into the space between a wall and a massive pipe. There was a long-forgotten built-in access for a repair crew on the side of the pipe, allowing them to enter and climb down under the main part of the facility, still underground but a level or two above the matrix of tunnels branching out from the old site. The drain in the utility closet was industrial sized, large enough for them each to emerge and take position before heading out into the more dangerous hallway.
“For a decommissioned ICBM, the facilities are in surprisingly good repair.” Harte’s comment was nonchalant, confirming for Gabe that the camera feeds each of his men wore were in working order despite the underground distance.
“Well-lit, clean,” Gabe responded. There were a lot of these decommissioned sites dotting the United States, leftover from the Cold War when intercontinental ballistic missiles were scattered among “dummy” sites. Over time, they’d fallen into disrepair, and most were condemned. “Funny how this one didn’t show up as having a long-term lease.”