Chapter 2

Dalton

I had to do something before he made the call to say he had spotted her. I snuck up behind him, but seeing Gillian in the window of the wedding dress shop was a distraction. I scuffed my feet on the gravel of the roof and the man turned with his hand going for his gun.

Fighting him was easy, but I wasn’t able to stop him from getting a shot off into the air. I got him into a choke hold and held it until his body went slack.

I had tried to stay hidden in plain sight, but seeing her made me forget my training. Watching her try on wedding dresses had me imagining the day we would walk down the aisle together. I had harbored an infatuation for Gillian from the moment I met her in basic training. She was proficient in hand to hand combat. I don’t know how many times I had fallen with my ego bruised by how easily she dispatched me.

The military was no longer a part of my life after the fateful day in Guam. The six of us were thick as thieves. It was an apt metaphor considering what we had agreed to do.

I wasn’t going to interfere in what was supposed to be the best day of her life.

I had been living a modest life a few 100 miles away in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. I was content with living off the land and waiting for the right opportunity to find my own piece of paradise. I should have known the past had a funny way of raising its ugly head. I didn’t know it was going to come in a sultry feminine form.

January 1 at exactly midnight had started a year ripe with consequences. I didn’t know what kind of hornet’s nest we had found ringing in the New Year. We were out celebrating and enjoying a fiesta in Guam with many different locals. It was a smorgasbord of different foods including chicken and fish. There was some kind of green bread. It was surprisingly delicious.

I was a bit of a glutton and went back for thirds. Of course, I brought with me my famous potato salad. It was a local tradition and I thought at the time we were the lucky ones. None of us had to walk in the path of those in war-torn countries. That wasn’t exactly true, but classified meant we were to remain silent.

I was pulled back to the present by the black town car screeching in the street. It barreled past my location and the shadows afforded me the opportunity to stay hidden. I could smell the exhaust and it made me choke on the dust following in its wake.

My combat boots were covered with a disgusting mixture of mud and snow. It felt like quicksand trying to drag me down into the pits of hell.

“I got there before he could make the call. You know I hate keeping Gillian in the dark.” I touched the earpiece connected to my eyes and ears on the other side. The young woman in my ear was Melanie.

“You know what would happen if you came out and she saw you. I was the only one who believed you didn’t die. I was the one to track you down at the cabin in your grandfather’s name. You did a damn good job of hiding the connection, but I have always been good at peeling back the layers of red tape.” Melanie was an on again and off again romance that was strictly physical.

“I should’ve known if anybody was going to find me it would be you.” Seeing Melanie after these months was like a blast from the past. I was overcome and fell victim to her sexual charms.

“What happened up on the roof?” Melanie was always a little too curious for her own good.

“He was watching and he heard me approaching. We got into it and he was able to get a shot off into the air. I was able to make sure he won’t be talking for quite some time. I broke his jaw in three places. He will be drinking his meals through a straw for the foreseeable future. We both know it’s not going to end with him.” The gun had gone off into the air by accident with no casualties to report.

The brick façade of the buildings beside me reminded me of those built in Guam out of concrete and rebar. The area was known for having termites.

The whole island would go into lockdown during a typhoon and the concrete was made to take a beating. My team of navy seals had seen many expensive homes wiped off the map. It was a matter of knowing the area and the environment. The rich sometimes didn’t give it any thought.

“I wouldn’t have come to you unless it was an emergency. I’ve known for quite some time where you lived. I must admit I wasn’t expecting the kind of welcome you gave me when I came knocking on your door.” Melanie was a blond temptress and had been trying unsuccessfully to seduce me.

I hadn’t been with a woman in months when she came to my door during a low point in my life. I’d just found out my father had died unexpectedly of a heart attack and there was no way I could attend the funeral. I was slightly pickled drinking myself into a stupor when I found a different outlet with Melanie. We were amazingly compatible and the chemistry was hot enough to melt the wallpaper from the walls.

“Melanie, I blame myself for what happened to Conner.” I had kept tabs on all of them knowing where they were at any given day. I wanted to be ready for the dark day of retribution.

“It’s been months since we’ve all seen each other and I don’t know why you would be surprised by his stupidity. We made a pact and he broke it by opening up his mouth.” I didn’t like how she could be cold and callous about somebody’s life ending unexpectedly.

“Melanie, you’ve always said people make their own beds. I don’t know why you can’t give people the benefit of the doubt. Not everybody is predictable.” Conner was a man of many vices and he battled those demons with the fierceness of a warrior.

“It was one thing when we were there to police his actions. I don’t know how many times I flushed ice down the toilet.” Ice was a very powerful methamphetamine and was considered an anchor around Conner’s ankle.

I should’ve known that civilian life would drag him down into a drugged out state of mind. He was never one for conventional thinking. Conner had gotten us into a lot of trouble and we somehow managed to walk away relatively unscathed. It took all of us to formulate a game plan on January 1. It was still a date in infamy.

“Guam is paradise and darkness mixed into one. If you go looking for trouble there is always someone willing to supply it. The police are ineffectual and not one case of shoplifting has ever gone to court. The drug trade is rampant and causes people to have bars over their windows.” Unless you were driving a beater, vehicle break-ins were common knowledge amongst the locals. It didn’t matter if you left your door open and they wouldn’t even bother to check before smashing the glass.

“We still continue to make excuses for him. It was very lucky for us to find one of their radios at the grisly scene of his death. They were careless and it gave us an edge we didn’t have before.” I could tell from what was left of Conner he didn’t go peacefully into the Goodnight.

“There’s no point in talking ill of the dead. He was our friend no matter what he did to bring this to our doorstep.” Melanie had to know he fought like a tiger to the very end. His mangled corpse was a reminder of what was waiting for the rest of us.

“It all comes down to having too many cooks in the kitchen. Out of the five of us, he was the only one who couldn’t keep to the plan. There’s no sense in crying over spilled milk. We got to Jackson and made sure he was safely squirreled away into a safe house of our choosing.” Jackson took some convincing, but Melanie was a seductive charm for a man who never married or had any children.

“The man I took out on the roof was only a scout. When he doesn’t call in they will come with reinforcements to torture the information out of Gillian.” Leaving him alive was necessary to keep my soul from being scarred by the unfortunate death of others.

“I’m way ahead of you. I’ve already sent an encrypted message on the radio we managed to get our hands on. It states emphatically there is no sign of her in the area.” The Kawasaki motorcycle I had paid for in cash was exactly where I had left it in the parking lot of the bank. It took me a few minutes to get back to it.

“It would be prudent for me to go over to the hospital and have a few words with him in private. I’m sure that we can come up with some kind of reasonable compromise.” Everybody had a price and I was willing to pay for his silence.

“It won’t be necessary. I called back the ambulance and made it sound like a teenage hoax.” I couldn’t believe she would do something like that. It dawned on me the reason why like an anvil coming down on top of my head from above.

“What the hell did you do?” I heard only silence and it was deafening like somebody screaming in my head.

“You’ve always been a boy scout, Dalton. I did what was necessary and I’m not going to feel bad about it. I made sure he won’t be contacting anyone.” She had ice water running through her veins, but the sex was phenomenal like she knew my body better than I knew it myself.

“I thought we agreed nobody was going to die. I wouldn’t have come out of exile had I known your true purpose. I don’t know what happened to you in these last few months, but you are not the same person you were in Guam.” She was still promiscuous, but there was something deadly in her eyes. She looked different, but she never prescribed to going under the knife.

“I came home and learned a valuable lesson. A dead man tells no tales. If you are expecting me to apologize then it’s going to be a cold day in hell when that happens. I’m here to do what you can’t and I never agreed to your terms. I changed because of necessity. I’m not going to get into it with you.” Melanie was the one who had become our conscience and it took somebody with a cold and calculated approach to do what she was doing.

I had tried to get in touch with the last member of our team out there, but he had gone underground with no forwarding address. Granger probably saw it coming and decided to make a premeditated decision to stay low.

I couldn’t get Gillian out of my head and how she looked in her wedding dress. She looked like she had found her happily ever after.

I was going to do everything in my power not to interrupt her upcoming wedding. The only thing missing from the portrait of happiness was the smile on her face.