Chapter One

Steven

The four words I’d been dreading for days: Maxwell, report to Command.

How typical.

When I’d put in the request to take leave over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, I knew it would be a stretch. After all, I’d been shot down four years in a row. Never able to get back stateside to spend the holidays with my family and friends in California. So, when I found out my extended leave was approved, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And apparently, it just did, about twenty minutes ago.

I was a First Class Petty Officer in the United States Navy. Special ops. A Navy SEAL. Being away from home, missing birthdays, holidays, and special events were unfortunately a part of the deal. I couldn’t complain. And, if I was being honest, I wouldn’t. I’d been in the Navy for damn near ten years now, and stationed in the Middle East for the last five. I busted my ass to get to where I was and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I lived for the thrill of the hunt, the high stakes missions, and the deep-rooted feeling that every time I was sent out on another mission, the world would change. It was addictive.

But being told to report to Command a week before I was supposed to be grabbing a flight back home for a little R&R was still a stinging blow.

I paused outside Captain Tucker’s office, taking a moment to throw my shoulders back and wipe the grimace from my face. With a deep breath, I checked my uniform to make sure I was squared away and knocked on the door. Two sharp raps with the backs of my knuckles.

“Come in.”

I pushed inside and saw Captain Barry Tucker hunched over his desk, scribbling frantically. Judging by the size of the mountain of paperwork to the left of his elbow, he was in for a long night. “Captain?” I said, halfway clearing my throat to get his attention.

He finished his sentence and then dropped his shiny black pen to the desk. Captain Tucker was in his mid-fifties. A decorated officer who had served all over the world. He was a respected man and for good reason. He’d always been fair with me, but there was something in his dark expression and commanding presence that made my knees a little shaky whenever I was called to his office for a one-on-one meeting. “Maxwell, good. Sit.”

I did as he asked, lowering into a chair opposite his impressive desk. Word on base was that he’d had it shipped over to the Kuwait command post all the way from California where he’d served as Commanding Officer at the SEAL’s home base and training facility in San Diego. Why, I wasn’t sure. Maybe it was a comfort to have something familiar. Homey. In such a foreign place. I was used to the Middle East. I’d lived in half a dozen countries since my first trip over and found it easy to blend into the different bases I’d been stationed at.

“At ease, Maxwell. For fuck’s sake.” Captain Tucker removed his thin wire-framed glasses and scrubbed his palms against his eyes. Only when he dropped his hands back to his desk did I notice the dark circles.

I relaxed my posture and crossed an ankle to the opposite knee. “Petty Officer Ruthers said you needed a word?”

Tucker slipped his glasses back on. “Yes. Listen, I know you’re set to get outta here in a few days, but I just got word from Harriet—”

I groaned. Harriet Jenners. The heart-of-steel bitch CIA liaison who liked to remind our team who was in charge. She was a total ball buster.

Captain Tucker didn’t reprimand me. In fact, the expression on his face looked as though he silently agreed with the sentiment. “The CIA needs our help with a mission. They requested you.”

“How flattering,” I growled.

Captain Tucker cracked a smile. “Yes. Well, I told them you need to be out in three days. But…” he trailed off, leaving me to fill in the blanks. But the CIA doesn’t give a rat’s ass whether or not I get off to my leave or not. It’s mission first—whether I like it or not.

When it came to matters of national security, the eggnog could wait.

“Sorry, son. But it’s their call. Harriet’s on her way here now and she’s bringing your handler for the mission. John Laine.”

I nodded. That was a relief at least. John and I had worked together before. He was one of the good ones.

Maybe this wouldn’t be a complete clusterfuck.

* * * *

Two days later, I was in Dubai, dressed like a royal douchebag, with the credentials of a make believe Dutch Banker, and—despite the questionable wardrobe choices—finding it a helluva lot of fun to be a wealthy son of a bitch for the weekend.

“Now, don’t let me embarrass you too much out here,” I said, flashing a grin at John as we took to the resorts’ world famous golf course. I reached into my fancy golf bag, retrieved the biggest club I could find, and walked up to the tee box and placed my ball on a shiny gold tee I had picked up in the pro shop just minutes earlier. I fuckin loved spending someone else’s money, besides this whole mission was cutting into my leave, and I’d much rather be packing for my trip home right now instead of chasing some bad guy for the tenth fucking time.

“You just keep trash talking,” he said, smirking back at me.

I lined up the shot, truthfully, I didn’t know the first thing about golf, but how hard could it be, right? I gripped down hard on the club and took the hardest swing I could. Thankfully, I didn’t make a complete ass out of myself, and actually managed to hit the damned thing. John whistled as the white ball sailed up the fairway and landed not too far off the green. “Damn. You sure you never played before?” he asked, holding his hand above his eyes to shield the mid-afternoon sun.

I laughed and came to stand beside him. I clapped him on the shoulder. “Just call me Tiger.”

John rolled his eyes and went to take his own shot. He ended up half a dozen yards from my ball—and none too happy about it. My second shot went straight into a small pond, as did my third and fourth shots. Golf was starting to take on a whole new dimension and I wasn’t digging it.

After we finished the first hole, we made our way up the course in our golf cart, heading for the second hole. On the way, we could speak plainly, without any fear that one of the resorts’ employees would overhear us. John drove the golf cart and kept his face ahead as he asked, “You ready for this?”

I nodded. “Born ready, Laine. You should know that about me by now.”

“All right. From our intelligence, Jal Mante should be up ahead. His T-time was twenty minutes ago. His party was small, a trio of men, I’m assuming at least one of them is a guard. Probably armed.”

Instinctively, I placed my hand at my hip, forgetting that I wasn’t armed. At least not at my waist like usual. No, the fancy golf threads hadn’t allowed for it. Instead, my gun was at my ankle and there were AK-47’s tucked into the golf bags, mixed in with the clubs.

Hopefully, we wouldn’t need them.

Jal Mante was a known terrorist who liked to play both sides. After his latest double cross, the CIA was tasked with removing him from the game. We were to take him in—alive—for interrogation about his customers. The kind of parasitic men that were hell bent on blowing up the whole damned world.

Then, once Jal Mante was in CIA custody, I’d be relieved from duty, put on a plane, first class, back to the states for a month. I sighed at the thought, letting my mind wander from the mission for just a moment, as we drove up the slight incline to the next hole on the course.

Home. God, it had been forever since my last visit. And even then, it had only been a long weekend and I’d barely had time to sleep off the damned jet-lag before I was back at the airport to fly back overseas again. It had killed my parents to send me back so soon. They understood—and appreciated—my service but I also knew that they missed me terribly, even if they didn’t load me down with guilt by voicing their emotions out loud. I was Kent and Georgia Maxwell’s only child. I’d joined the Navy in the middle of my senior year and had shipped off to boot camp a week after graduation. My parents barely had time to clean up from the grad party before they were setting up for my goodbye party.

I grimaced at the long-ago memories. I hated that I wasn’t there for them. They were getting older and I knew they wanted to see me happy and settled down. Sooner rather than later. My mother, especially. She didn’t like that I was always in the field, risking my life, over and over again, and never even talked about having an end game. I supposed they figured I’d do my four years of active duty and then return home to go to college, get married, and start a family. After all, that was the life of all my high school buddies. They were all married, with big time corporate jobs or a business of their own, and most of them had at least a couple of kids.

John glanced over at me. “You okay? I told you to lay off that spicy dip last night.”

I chuckled under my breath at his admonishment. “It’s not the dip.”

“Well, then what’s wrong? You worried about the mission?” He arched a brow at the second question. He knew I wasn’t the type to get rattled. Especially not over such a cake mission.

“Just thinking about home,” I said.

John parked the golf cart at the beginning of the next hole. He looked about ready to ask a follow-up question but stopped short, his eyes darting over my shoulder. I craned around and heard what had caught his attention. A foreign tongue that registered but not clear enough to understand.

“We caught up faster than I thought we would,” John said, suddenly nervous sounding.

“Hell of a getaway car we got here.” I replied, pushing out the side of the cart.

John followed suit and we clamored up the small ridge to get a view of the next hole. Sure enough, Jal Mante and his two men were there, still at the beginning, and from the sound of it, they were arguing with the resort employee who was serving as their caddy. We watched for a few minutes, surveying the scene and silently factoring in different strategies. There was a CIA helicopter waiting less than a mile away. There was a fence circling the entire golf course. A tall, security fence. We had a man ready at one of the gates through the fence. Ready with a car that would take us—and Jal Mante—right to the chopper.

“Looks like at least one of them is armed,” John said, jutting his chin at the man on the far left.

I nodded, seeing the bulge of a weapon at his hip, under his jacket. No one golfed in a jacket. Too constraining. The other two weren’t wearing jackets, but that didn’t mean anything. They could have weapons at their ankles like John and me. Or in their golf bags. “I’ll take him. You get our guy.”

“And the third?”

I didn’t answer. I let the flash of steel as I pulled my gun from my ankle holster do the talking on my behalf. “Showtime.”

The caddy was getting the ball set and the three men were speaking rapidly amongst themselves as John and I called in our plan and then started down the slope.

Everything happened in double time. John barked out orders, flashing his badge beside his gun. Which, of course, was promptly ignored. The caddy screamed and took off running in the opposite direction. Neither of us attempted to stop him. The guard in the jacket pulled his weapon and I shot him before he could get a shot off. He hit the ground before the other man could get his weapon free from the golf bags at the back of their cart. John trained his weapon at him, speaking calm, level-headed instructions in their native tongue.

Jal Mante watched as his man started to back down, looked at John and me, and then started to run. I flew forward and tackled Jal Mante to the ground. With expert precision, I got him fastened into a pair of zip-tie cuffs. He cursed me under his breath and I was thankful I didn’t understand a word. From the hate in his eyes as he glared up at me, it wasn’t pretty.

“Grenade!” John screamed.

An explosion ripped through the air and my heart shot up into my throat like a rocket. I kept my grip on Jal Mante and turned to look at what happened. John was limping away from the blast site that was like a crater in the otherwise pristine grounds. The other man had apparently been packing a grenade and had chucked it at John.

“Oh, come on! Who packs a fucking grenade to the golf course?” I growled, pushing Jal Mante’s face into the grass. “Stay down mother fucker!”

John fired at the man, hitting him in the leg, and he went down. John raced over and locked him in cuffs before returning to the third man—the one in the jacket—and checking him for signs of life. He looked up and shook his head at me and I swore under my breath. “Fuck. That’s gonna be an assload of paperwork.”

I returned to Jal Mante and resisted the urge to kick him. “You’re fucking lucky my partner is okay. Get up!” I reached down and yanked him up by the collar, not caring when it started to tear, as long as my grip remained strong on the man.

I commandeered their golf cart, cuffed Jal Mante to the bar at the side, and tore a donut on the green as I whipped around for John and his man to get loaded up. When everyone was loaded, including the one who hadn’t made it, I tore off for the gate where the rest of our team would be waiting as John radioed ahead to get them ready for our prompt arrival.

When John finished, he glanced back at the site and chuckled. “I can’t believe you just did a fuckin’ donut on the green. You trying to get me fired?”

I laughed. “Wasn’t my intention. I was just looking for a safe place to flip a bitch and make sure your ass was okay.”

“Yeah, well, as soon as your sorry ass gets back from vacation, I’m gonna make you do all the damned paperwork.”

“Fair enough. Let’s get rid of these two assholes, so I can get my ass on a plane and peace the fuck out of this desert for a minute.”

John laughed. “Deal.”