Chapter Four
Dewey exhaled deeply and tipping his hat back, he ran his fingers down his face. “We were there to secure the area when shit hit the fan. The Taliban weren’t supposed to be there but as we started our recon, a team came out of the huts and began firing on us. They breached our line where Patrick Rivers was supposed to be and the next thing we know, a blast took out one of our own. When the smoke cleared, we had one dead, I was wounded and two more were missing. We never did find out what happened to them until yesterday when Wyatt Gage showed up with a bunch of papers we knew nothing about.”
“What’s the story with this Patrick Rivers?”
“According to Wyatt, Patrick Rivers walked away from his post and joined the Taliban. He’s the one behind the plot to break our nation and destroy our military.”
“Is this guy one of us?” Boomer wanted to know.
Dewey shrugged. “That, we don’t know yet. I’m going to have our tech guy look into his background.”
Boomer shook his head. “Let baby girl do that. If he’s got something to hide, she’ll find it. She is the best at what she does.”
“She seems awfully young for what she does.”
Boomer grinned. “She’s young in truth, but she has skills like no one you’ve ever seen before.”
“So my tech guys says.” Dewey crossed his arms over his chest.
“Her old man is military, did you know that? He’s one of the big shots.”
Dewey raised an eyebrow. “She never said anything about that.”
“She wouldn’t. She doesn’t talk about him much but I did some checking on my own. Trudy Chase doesn’t exist. I don’t know her real name but her sister is in Port Arthur under an assumed name. She’s living in a housing unit for the blind. She’s hiding for some reason and it’s not from the drug dealer.”
“What happened to that guy anyway?”
Boomer smiled. “Let’s just say his body will never be found and leave it at that.”
Dewey held his hand out and when Boomer shook it he said, “Good man.” He paused then asked, “What about the brother?”
“She doesn’t talk about him much. I do know his first name is Ronnie but not much else.” He paused then added, “She has nightmares sometimes. She gets caught up in the beating she took and it scares the hell out of her. It took a really long time for her to be comfortable around us. Big men like us scare the hell out of her. We remind her too much of the guys that laid a beating on her and her sister. That’s why she has the dogs, although Ivory belongs to her sister. I don’t have a clue why Trudy has her but Ebony is trained to protect her and wake her from the nightmares.”
“Parker told us some of this already. She’s friends with his sister Janet,” Dewey explained. “He’s known her for about five years now.”
“Then she trusts him and in turn, trusts the rest of you. It takes a lot for her to trust anyone. If you betray that trust, she’ll be gone in an instant and you’ll never see her again.”
“What makes you think I’d betray her?” Dewey felt insulted.
Boomer laughed. “I’ve seen the way you look at her. She may be unaware of it yet, but you want her.”
Dewey chuckled. “I may want her but I’m too old for her. She’s what? All of twenty four? I’m over twelve years older with a hell of a lot more experience than she will ever have. I’ve seen things she can’t imagine.”
“War does that to a man but I’ve also seen the way she watches you.” Boomer nodded.
“And how is that?”
“I think I’ll let you find that out on your own.” He shrugged. “Of course, I could be wrong, altogether.”
Just then, Cyrus stuck his head out of the shop and called out, “Lunch is ready.”
Boomer got up and began walking toward the shop. “Can you and I and the Marine work together to end this?”
Dewey nodded. “It’s going to take all of us to bring this bastard down.”
Boomer stopped and turned to stare at hm. “If you hurt her, I will break you into tiny pieces and feed you to the gators, I hope you understand that.”
“I hear you, old man.”
When they got into the shop, everyone was busy eating. Cyrus had made a big batch of spaghetti that smelled delicious. Grabbing their plates, Boomer joined Trudy at the desk and Dewey sat down next to his own men.
Parker sat back and noted the look on his Captain’s face. Dewey was watching Boomer and Trudy with a frown.
“So Captain, what do you want us to do?” Cade asked from the other side of Dewey.
“I think we should see what we can find out about Patrick. If he is behind this, we need to figure out what his next step is going to be.”
Colten heard their plan and nodded. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
Dewey sat back and glanced at his men. ”Boomer thinks Trudy should do the background check on Patrick. He thinks she’ll find more than you can.”
Colten agreed. “He may be right about that but I can get it started.”
“Aren’t you the least bit upset about that?” Stone asked following the conversation without saying anything before now.
Colten shrugged. “Why should I be? She’s got some mad skills. Besides, we wouldn’t have the information we have without her.”
“What’s our next step boss?” Parker asked.
“I need to make some calls. We need to alert our guys in the sandbox what’s coming,” Dewey informed them.
“Who are you going to call?” Cade asked.
“I thought I’d put Brag in charge of the command.”
“I need to give you the location of the village I was held him.” Wyatt agreed. “The Taliban will probably still be there.”
Dewey nodded. When he got the info from Wyatt, he stood and left the building. Walking to his cabin, he went to his bedroom and inside his closet, he opened the safe hidden there. Once the safe was open, he took out the cell phone he had inside. This phone was a secure line. Sitting on his bed, he dialed the number he hadn’t used since he returned Stateside.
When a gruff voice answered his call, Dewey grinned. “Hey there boss man, how is the weather where you are?”
Colonel Brag Warren growled into the phone. “Mann, what the hell do you want? Are you thinking about coming back to this hellhole?”
“Not a chance old man. Not a chance.” Dewey laughed at the suggestion. “I do need to give you some solid Intel though.”
“What’s up?”
“We uncovered a plot to assassinate the leading military leaders in the Middle East.”
“Fuck me, how good is your Intel?”
“Do you remember the day our world went to hell?” Dewey asked. “We lost one good man and two went missing. Well you ain’t gonna believe this but one of those missing men came home. When we didn’t hear from him in all this time we thought he was dead. He brought with him a plan of action that showed us we have a serious problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“There is a series of bombs planted along the New Madrid Fault line that could break our country in half. There is also a hit list of the leaders of our military over there.”
“Damn,” Brag Warren growled into the phone. “Where did this info come from?”
“One of the missing men in our unit. We found out he walked off his post and into the arms of the Taliban. I think it’s safe to say, he isn’t one of us. We’re doing what we can to find out why but we were told he was a sleeper, sent here years ago to infiltrate our defenses and take back what he found out and use that info against us. He used the name Patrick Rivers.”
“Who was the man that came back?”
“Wyatt Gage. He was taken that day and held for four months. He escaped with some local help but went back to find out what the plan was. He brought some papers back with him. He didn’t know what the papers were but we were able to decode them. They were a map of what our country would look like after the explosion. It will literary break out nation in half and leave us broken. Hundreds of thousands will die and in the chaos that would follow, no one will survive.”
“Can you stop it?”
“We have men already on the problem. I have a list of names of the men you need to protect. Wyatt gave me the location of the village he was kept in, he said the Taliban is living there.”
“Give me the location and we’ll wipe the bastards off the face off the planet,” Brag assured him. “What is our timeline?”
“December 31st at the dropping of the ball in Times Square.”
“Happy fucking New Year to us.”
“We’re still decoding the info we got but I thought I needed to pass along this info to you right away.”
“Thanks, keep this phone on you and call me back if you discover something else. I’ll keep you informed on our end.” Brag hesitated a moment before passing along info he had, “We’ve been monitoring chatter on our end about an American working with the Taliban. We didn’t want to believe it but now we have to. You just confirmed our worst fears.”
“If it makes any difference, we don’t think Patrick is American. We don’t know that for sure just yet though, but we’re working on it.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better. If he is Iraqi, how the hell did he get into our military in the first place?”
“We’re going to find out as soon as we can, sir.”
Brag chuckled. “I like that you still call me sir.”
Dewey chuckled and ended the call. There was still too much they didn’t know. He went back to the shop.
Trudy glanced up as Dewey came back in. She watched him as he walked over to his men. Her lips suddenly felt dry as she studied his body. She heard Boomer chuckle softly beside her and she turned to look at him. “What?”
“For the first time since I’ve known you, you look hungry, baby girl.” he whispered.
“Maybe for the first time I am,” she whispered back. “Too bad, it has to be now and for a man who won’t give me the time of day.”
“Oh, I think he’ll give you more than the time of day, if you let him, that is.”
Trudy frowned as she stared at Boomer.
“I have a feeling he’s as hungry for you as much you are for him.”
Trudy turned back to watch Dewey. He moved effortlessly through the room. She could only imagine what his body would feel like against hers. When he walked over to the desk, she had to swallow hard. She heard Boomer chuckle but ignored him.
“Have you found anything else we can use?”
Trudy shook her head.
“Then I want you to dig into Patrick’s background. I want everything you can find out about him. I want to know what the man ate for breakfast three years ago, where he came from and if his family is still around.”
“Speaking about family.” Boomer picked up the papers Trudy had just decoded, handing them to Dewey. “Why would your guy include notes about your families in these papers? Why would that info be important to him?”
Cade got up from the table and walked over to them. “What do you mean info about our families? What the fuck do our families have to do with this?”
“That’s what I was asking your Captain,” Boomer stated.
Trudy hung her head and kept her peace. As the other men of Dewey’s unit gathered around, she didn’t look up at them.
Finally, Dewey reached out and slowly lifted her chin. When she lifted her eyes to his he asked her softly, “Why do you think he has info about our families in his notes?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered as tears filled her eyes.
Dewey studied her for a moment before he asked again, “Why?”
Trudy’s tears spilled out and over her cheeks. Closing her eyes, she felt Boomer’s hand on her shoulder.
“Tell us what you’re thinking? Why would he include this info?”
She opened her eyes and stared at Dewey. She didn’t want to see his pain but she had to tell him what she knew. She had to give them fair warning. “What is the one thing that men away from home talk about the most?” she asked softly. “What would be the one thing he could use to draw you guys out into the open?”
“Our families,” Dewey concluded.
Trudy began biting her lip. “He claims he doesn’t know where you are, but he does know a way to bring you all together in one place. A place of his choosing.”
“Does he mention any names?” Cade asked. “I mean we all come from this general area, is he coming here?”
“My mother lives and works in Denver,” Danny told them.
“We can protect her,” Stone assured him. He and his men had joined the crowd. “I can get the fucking Marines in Denver to protect your mother.”
“What about my family boss?” Cade asked. “They live in Baton Rouge.”
“Mine live in Little Rock,” Jake told them.
“Mine are in Oklahoma City,” Colten added.
“Janet is all the family I have left,” Parker commented.
“We need to keep them all safe, Boss,” Wyatt stated. “How the hell do we do that when we don’t even know where this little bastard is hiding?”
“We make him come to us,” Trudy spoke quietly. She could see the various levels of panic running through the men’s faces at the thoughts of their loved ones being in trouble and she knew she had to focus their pain and get them to all work together.
Dewey turned to stare at her again. “And just how do we do that?”
“I need you all to remember what you talked about while he was with you.” She began to explain her plan, “Was there one thing you talked about that y’all would do together?”
“What about Wesley’s mother?” Parker suggested. “He knew we’d all come together if something happened to her.”
Dewey’s eyes got hard. His face tightened. He turned to Boomer. “Can you send your men to collect her and bring her back here, so we can protect her?”
Boomer nodded. “I can do that. But why is she so important? What about the rest of your families?”
“He would know that we would do anything for the family of a fallen member of our squad. Wesley died the day Patrick and Wyatt disappeared,” he explained. “We all vowed to take care of anyone’s family in case we died in action.”
“Instead of bringing her here, why don’t you take her to my place in Port Arthur?” Trudy offered. “It’s a secure location and they would be able to see if anything or anyone is coming. Besides, once they are inside and locked down, nothing short of a bomb would be able to get to them. I do have a safe room. Even if they did manage to break into the factory, I have a safe room in the sub-basement. There are cameras down there and nobody knows it’s even there.”
“That would work,” Boomer agreed. “My men could get her there and keep her safe.”
“If you take Janet with you, Megan would go along much easier,” Parker suggested. “She knows Janet whereas she doesn’t know your guys.”
Dewey nodded. “That’s a good idea. Pick up Janet then Megan.”
“What about my mom?” Wyatt asked. “Serif or Patrick or whatever the hell he calls himself, doesn’t know I’m still alive or that I’m back home. If he can’t get to Wesley’s mom, would he go after mine?”
Dewey nodded. “He just might.” Turning to Boomer, he asked, “Can your men pick up one more?”
Boomer stood up and yelled, “Cyrus, Sam, Clovis.”
As the three men gathered around, he gave them the plan. Trudy handed over her keys and the codes to her building and within minutes, the men were ready to leave. Dewey placed a call to Megan and Parker called his sister. When Parker was done, he looked at Dewey. “What about her?”
“Her who?” Dewey frowned.
“Trudy, what about her family?”
“What about her family?” Dewey was confused.
“She’s my sister’s best friend. I told you guys all about her. Bragged even about how good she was on a computer. I used to rub it in Colten’s face that I bet him she could do the crap he was doing in less time.”
“Yeah, he did that,” Colten agreed. “I remember telling him he would have to prove that one day.”
Dewey ran his fingers along his jaw. Turning toward her he suggested, “What about your sister?”
Trudy stiffened. “What about her?”
“Patrick has heard about you and your mad computer skills. How easy would it be for him to find out about your sister?”
She sank back down in her chair. “He wouldn’t be able to find her. She’s hidden from everyone but me. Not even the people who run the place where she’s at know her real name.”
“What do you mean they don’t know her real name?” Dewey asked. “Just who the hell is she then?”
Trudy looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “After the accident, I hid her the only way I knew how. I changed her name and found a place to help her with her blindness. They taught her to live in a sightless world. As far as I know, she hasn’t made contact with her family since then.”
“Who is her family?” Cade asked. “Isn’t her family your family too?”
“No, not really. You see, my father disowned me the night he found out I ransacked a drug dealer’s house. The General said that his children knew better and that because I didn’t seem to know any better, I was no longer his daughter. He threw me out of his house that night and out of his life.”
“The General?” Dewey questioned.
“Brigadier General Alexander Chassen,” Trudy whispered his name.
Dewey felt a hollowing growing inside him. “His name was on that hit list I gave Brag.”
Trudy nodded. “Yes, I know.”
Clovis stepped up to her and wrapped his beefy arms around her shoulders. “We’ll take care of your sister too, baby girl. Don’t you worry about her no more. We’ll make sure she’s be okay.”
Trudy smiled softly. “She won’t go with you. She’ll want to come here to be with me. She always said that together, we could do anything. Together, we would be safer. She said as we started life together and we would go out the same way.”
“What do you mean you started life together?” Dewey asked.
Trudy glanced up at him. “We’re twins. Amanda and I are twins.”
“Well shit,” he swore.