Chapter Four

Tomasin Montague spoke perfect English.

She also had an escape route planned—but she was unwilling to divulge information about it to two Americans, one of whom was still wearing a military uniform.

Her bodyguards kept their weapons carefully, unswervingly trained on Shane and Magic, and Shane didn’t blame them. Were he in her position, he would do the same.

He told her everything.

The assignment he’d been given to take out a wanted terrorist, known for her ruthlessness in killing children.

The realization they’d had that the face-recognition software was intentionally set to deceive them.

Shane’s attempt to placate his superiors and buy time to contact and rescue Tomasin and her family by calling in the bombing on the deserted farmhouse down the hillside.

The still unidentified rogue team that launched the mortar attack on the school—an attack that had been silenced, no doubt permanently, by Senior Chief Salantino and the other SEALs.

“It’s important,” Shane said, as he looked into Tomasin Montague’s weary and wary brown eyes, “that this time, when you disappear, you disappear for good. I can help you do that.”

She didn’t trust him, but she didn’t shut him down, so he kept talking.

“I have a friend,” he continued, but then corrected himself, because Jean was not anyone’s friend. “A contact. In Vienna. He can help you vanish. You and your children.” He looked from Tomasin to the little boy she held close to her side, the one from the images, and then to a teenaged girl who was still wearing her costume from the play. She, too, looked a lot like her mother.

One of the guards, the one with the AK-47, murmured something, and even though Shane was no kind of languages expert like Magic, he knew from the tone and the urgency that the man was saying it was time to go.

“You think you can hide,” Shane persisted, and the woman looked back at him. “But the people who are after you won’t give up. They will find you.”

“And next time Lieutenant Laughlin won’t be there to help you,” Magic chimed in. “You have no idea how lucky you are that this man was in command of this mission. No idea.”

“Jean Reveur,” Shane said as Tomasin looked from Magic to Shane and back again. “You can contact him via his email address. Dreamer19 at qmail dot com. Tell him I sent you. Tell him I’m cashing in the favor he owes me. Tell him after this? We’re even.”

“You would use up this favor,” she said in her gently accented English, “for strangers?”

Magic answered for him. “Yes, ma’am. He would.”

“Go,” Shane said. “Now. Dreamer19. Qmail. We’ll go help the wounded.”

The woman nodded, and with her children at her side, she turned to continue up the path into the mountains. The guard with the AK-47 lingered, backing away from Shane and Magic, his weapon still trained on them until he was swallowed by the night.

“Think she’ll do it?” Shane asked his friend, who’d already looped Shane’s arm up and around his neck, so he’d have to put the least amount of weight on his injured ankle as possible as they scrambled and slid down the steep path to the still burning Quonset hut.

“Probably not until the news of your court martial goes public,” Magic said helpfully. “Or maybe it’ll be the ceremony where they strip you of your rank that’ll convince her you’re on her side. Particularly if they keep the cameras rolling and catch the part where Ashley returns your engagement ring.”

“That’s not going to happen. Ashley loves me,” Shane said, although even to his own ears he didn’t sound completely convinced.

“I know I’ve given you endless crap about her,” Magic grunted as he kept them both from falling as his boots skidded on some loose gravel that bounced down the trail ahead of them. “All my conspiracy theories and predictions of doom? That’s just because I’m a jealous piece of shit. She’s amazing. And she definitely loves you, man. But Daddy’s not going to let her marry you. Not after the CEO-in-Chief chews you up and spits you out. Ashley’s got a lot of really great qualities, Shane, but a backbone made of steel isn’t one of ’em. You know this as well as I do.”

Shane couldn’t argue with that.

“She’ll cry,” Magic continued as they left the hillside behind. “And she’ll be heartbroken and devastated. But when it’s all said and done, she’ll do as she’s told.”

“I still think I have a chance,” Shane started to say.

But Magic wasn’t done. “You know, it’s not too late for me to—”

“Jesus Christ, just shut it, Kozinski.”

But Magic didn’t. “Seriously, Shane. With you gone from the Teams, what’s the point of my staying? Have you seen the new officers in the SpecWarGroup HQ? They haven’t gone through BUD/S, but now they’re leading SEAL teams? They’re not qualified to wipe my ass.”

Shane could feel the heat from the fire on his face, hear the screams of the wounded and grieving. “Then I guess you’re finally going to have to get your shit together and go through OTS. Make the jump from enlisted to officer.”

“Fuck. Me,” Magic said. “Can you see me in Officer’s Training? I won’t make it through one week, let alone twenty-six.”

“Play your cards right,” Shane said, “and maybe you’ll marry Ashley.”

“That’s not funny.” Magic’s voice was tight.

“I know,” Shane said. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

But then they rounded the corner and found Rick’s makeshift triage—which included an area reserved for the unsavable and the already dead.

Magic stopped short. “Fuck. Those bastards killed Buttercup. Shit,” he said. “Shit.”

Nothing like a dozen dead children as a visual aid to drive Shane’s point home. Or two dozen wounded, with more still trapped inside. “You’ve gotta stay in,” Shane said quietly. “Or we’ll never find out who’s responsible for this.”

Magic didn’t answer. He also didn’t pretend that Shane would stay out here and assist Rick. He just helped him into the burning building and then let him go. Apparently it was okay with him if Shane had to use a cane for the rest of his life, if it meant he’d saved children’s lives.

Shane moved past the civilians—mostly women—who were helping with the evacuation. He went right toward the heat of the flames, where he scooped up a little girl who’d been stunned from the blast, who was coughing and vomiting from the thick, toxic smoke. His ankle was starting to scream—the local was wearing off. But he carried her out and gently put her down near Rick, then went back inside for the next, and the next, and the next.