Epilogue
Laszlo Jensen watched as Talon, his good arm bandaged, and Clary, her face sporting colorful bruises, walked into Badger’s house. Clary was shy, standing almost as if a part of Talon. Like everybody would already know and judge her for their past.
Dotty, Badger’s coonhound, accepted Clary as is, wagging her tail furiously and walking up to greet each visitor, which is how Dotty greeted everyone. Clary laughed, broke away from Talon, squatting gently to give the sweet dog a cuddle.
When she stood up again, Badger stepped forward on his crutches and said, “There you are.”
Clary smiled and reached up and gave him a hug. He hugged her back gently. Talon hadn’t shared much about her past, but Badger didn’t need to know to understand how hard it was to heal from what she’d been through. But since she’d moved into Talon’s, the two of them had had lots of time to work through their old differences and to get comfortable being in the same space again. And now it was as if they’d never been apart.
With everyone seated in the living room of Badger’s house, Laszlo settled back, loving the feeling of having his friends grow in number and become a bigger, stronger family than even what they were before. Badger was moving, though slowly. It would be a long time before he would get his prosthetic back. Kat, at his side always, doted on him.
Laszlo knew they would have some badass prosthetics coming their way, when the time was right. And he couldn’t wait. He glanced around at the group and said, “It’s good to see everybody back here again.”
“Except not everybody’s here,” Erick said. “Jager’s missing. He’s still dark.”
“Do we know for sure he’s even alive?”
Erick nodded. “I got another message. But it was simple. He’s still hunting.”
“He always was a bit of a loner,” Laszlo said. “If he’d at least check in with us, we’d have a chance to tell him what information we have.”
“Speaking of information”—Geir sat on the far side of the room—“Jager’s a good man. And, when he’s hunting, there’s no one else like him. But I wish to hell I was out there hunting with him.”
Erick nodded. “And we’re all here today to figure out what should happen next—and for Badger’s sake. As he’s not supposed to be moving as much as he is right now.”
Badger waved his arm. “I’m fine.”
Kat reached over and laced her fingers with his.
Laszlo smiled. “With Kat at your side, it’s no wonder you’re fine.”
There was some good-humored ribbing, which Badger accepted with a smile. “She’s the best thing that’s happened to me.” His gaze locked on Laszlo. “Did you ever notice the similarity between our group and Mason’s and Levi’s?”
Laszlo winced. “Hell no.”
Erick and Talon chuckled. “Well, you should. Because you’re next.”
Cade had stayed quiet in the corner, Faith at his side, a couple beers open between the two of them. “It’s all right, Laszlo. When you’re ready, it’ll happen.”
Laszlo shook his head. “What I’m ready for is to find this asshole.”
“That’s why we’re gathered together,” Erick began. “We’ve got several threads to pull, and they are not in any particular order. And, Badger, chime in if I’ve forgotten anything or have my wires crossed here.”
Badger nodded, patting Dotty, sitting by his chair.
“As you all know, our Afghanistan explosion was not an accident. We believe a US military-grade land mine was buried and used to explode our truck. Plus thereafter we’ve lost seven family members in vehicular deaths posing as accidents. Laszlo’s father too was a victim of a hit-and-run, but he lived to tell the tale. So the guy we’re after, the guy behind all the hit men and the hired guns and the snipers seems to be killing off his minions, like John Smith is dead, John MacArthur is dead, the unnamed man who attacked Clary is dead. Of course Badger killed the sniper who killed our first informant Ben Chambers.
“I’m in touch with Mason and Levi daily, sharing intel, and yet we haven’t found out much as to our dead hired guns. So let’s pull what threads we’ve got and see where they go. Here’s the first.” Erick pointed his pen at Cade and Faith. “Faith saw US dog tags on John Smith, our now-dead hit man who owned and drove the black Lexus, yet he was last seen here in Santa Fe but also in San Diego about fourteen months ago. He’s taken responsibility for the deaths of Cade’s sister and Talon’s friend and Clary’s brother Chad, plus the hit-and-run on Laszlo’s father that left him incapacitated but alive.”
Cade booted up his laptop. “I’ll have Faith look at the different dog tags online. We’ll see if we can narrow that down now.”
“Great. Talon, while I’m thinking about this, I understand you’re following up at your hospital in San Diego on who told you about Chad’s death.”
Talon nodded. “I did but that went nowhere. The feeds are missing, no longer available.”
Erick nodded. “Figures. Kat, can you hook us up with a printer in case we need one?”
Kat stood. “I’m on it.”
Badger smiled. “She’s even beginning to talk like us.” Everyone in the room could see how proud he was of her.
“Plus,” Erick said, “did we have anybody canvass the San Diego city cameras to follow the black Porsche and the blue Audi before and after the attack on Clary? Granted, Clary’s attacker himself is dead, who was seen driving the blue Audi, but so is John MacArthur, the registered owner of that blue Audi. However, someone drove away in the black Porsche, after dropping off Clary’s attacker in her parking lot at work. Whoever he is, he may have a hidey-hole in California.”
Talon gave a quick chin nod. “Let me work that angle. I think Clary’s boss, as an attorney, might get us some special privileges there with the cops, being a local.”
“Done.” Erick ran a finger over one of his two notebooks. “Okay, for clarity, we had John Smith’s black Lexus and the money man’s rented BMW involved here in Santa Fe. But John Smith is dead, so his black Lexus is not on our radar anymore. And Warren Watson was renting the BMW but has since gone home. Again not on our radar at this time. But that small hatchback got away with our gunman inside at the airport after he failed to kill the money man. But I have to ask, Why so many men? So many vehicles?”
“Misdirection,” Talon said with confidence.
“A red herring,” Laszlo said. “Fitting for the game this SOB thinks he’s playing.”
“But there was something about our money man that bothered me.” Erick checked one of his notebooks. “Here it is. Per a run of the rental car plates—and I guess from the name he gave at the counter—he’s supposedly ex-military, as in American, guys and gals. He’s a former supply clerk, dishonorably discharged due to suspicion of stealing, among other things, land mines. Which should raise red flags for all of us. But I’m confused as to why he would use his real name in his line of business. Or why he would use a fake name that led us to a crooked supply clerk? I thought we were running his photo ID too, from his DL given when he rented the BMW. Again to confirm the name. But I haven’t got that back either. This is such a jumbled mess and makes no logical sense to me. I suggest we start with someone asking Mason to run a search on dishonorably discharged supply clerks. How many could there be over the last five, ten years?”
Clary spoke up. “Let me take care of that.” When everybody stared, Talon smiled at her and squeezed her hand. She sat taller, and smiled at him. “I’m in between jobs right now. You seem to be using Levi and Mason, predominantly, other than the local police departments. Let me see what I can find out for you.”
“Great. Thanks, Clary. Talon can give you the telephone numbers, emails, whatever you need.” Erick wrote something quickly in his notebook.
At that point, Kat returned with a printer and set it up nearby.
Erick said, “Thanks, Kat. Next is Monkeyman, a possible American, along with his two companions, Dumbo and the bald ex-fighter, who Honey had the displeasure of meeting in Afghanistan for her dental conference. Now Cade and Laszlo and I all were there for Monkeyman’s building-climbing feats. But, Talon, could this be your guy on Clary’s balcony? Granted, not as impressive, but Monkeyman got away from us in Afghanistan. We have yet to ID him. Yet again we have to consider that he was an American, possibly in the military, who possesses special skills.” Erick turned to Talon, all eyes on him.
“The guy climbing on Clary’s second-story balcony had a neck tattoo. It was similar to the one Mouse had, in the same location. I can tug that line, pass off anything I find to Mason to see if he could cross-check that against US military men who have extreme climbing abilities along with that ink.”
Erick nodded. “Noted. Before I forget, everyone must get back to me within forty-eight hours, even if just to tell me nothing further was found.” Erick sighed, reading his meeting notes. “What about Tesla’s further deconstruct on our tape recording of the new directive for our team’s military truck, issued by the fake Corporal Shipley? And the bug set in our Afghanistan supplier’s workshop?”
Badger answered. “I haven’t heard from Tesla on either point. Kat, did she call you when I was under the knife?”
Kat shook her head. “Not me.”
“Since Kat won’t let me hold a phone”—Badger smiled wickedly in her direction—“I suggest Geir call Tesla for a follow-up on both those matters.”
“Will do,” Geir said with a nod.
“Okay, moving on,” Erick said, “Our retired navy informant, Ben Chambers, was shot down in front of Badger, by the paid sniper. Then Badger killed our sniper when he visited Badger’s hotel room. The sniper’s photo was given to Mason and Levi for a full workup. I’ve spoken to both of them, but they have had no luck yet. I suspect we may need to contact Jonas at MI6 because our sniper may have been an international bad guy.”
Erick continued, “And while we are talking about our folks across the pond—and since we have no contact info on the rebel leader who Cade, Laszlo and I met while in Afghanistan—does anybody know if Mason or Levi or even Bullard have somebody in the Kabul area to follow up with our friendly arms dealer? That bug is still live, but we need eyes on the arms trader’s customers to seek out who is our laughing land mine buyer. If nobody’s available to hang around, do we dare involve Shadowbox in this?”
Badger spoke up. “Let me handle that.”
Kat said, “No, you won’t be handling anything. Have that Merk guy or Brandon do it the next time they call you.”
The room gave a collective laugh at how easily Kat would rein in Badger.
Talon shook his head and smiled. “I’ll handle it, Kat.”
Erick cleared his throat to cover up his chuckle. “Unless I’ve missed something, that takes care of the old stuff. Now here’s the newest update. We’ve done an initial but full workup on Mouse,” Erick said, returning to the business at hand. “We’ve got a list of everybody he ever came in contact with that we could find. And, I have to admit, it’s not much. So I suggest what we do right now is, everybody tell me everything they might have heard or knew about Mouse. I thought I knew him pretty well. But honestly, when I tried to dredge up some memories, it was a lot of ribbing and teasing and bugging. I thought his family was from Texas. As far as I knew, he only had a mother.”
Cade leaned forward, a frown on his face. “That can’t be right. I swear to God he was from California and that he lived with his parents before hitting the military.”
Badger looked at the two of them. “Really?”
Erick glanced over at him. “What do you remember?”
Badger frowned. “I was closer to him than all of you. I thought he had only an uncle in Texas. But I don’t remember him being very willing to talk about him.”
“Do you remember why?” Laszlo asked.
“No, but he was pretty adamant. I just can’t remember if he gave me a specific reason or not. The thing about Mouse was, he always made up stories. It was pretty hard to tell what was real and what wasn’t,” Badger admitted. “But he was young. He was trying hard to be one of us. He would eventually turn into a hell of a man and be a great member of the unit, but we all know he wasn’t quite there yet.”
The men all nodded.
“That’s quite true,” Erick said. “We covered for him many times, and we helped him to make the grade as many times as we could. But he always knew he wasn’t as good as the rest of us.”
“But we never bugged him about that,” Cade said.
And again the men nodded in agreement.
Erick wondered about that. “Do you think he wrote to his uncle, or to whoever was in his world who’s trying to get back at us, that we were less than supportive?”
That topic brought up silence all around.
“He might have,” Talon offered. “Any teasing we did was in the same vein as the teasing we always did. It was lighthearted, and we never meant any of the insults. It was the way of the world—our world particularly,” Talon said. “Mouse always was pale. Remember that?” he added with a crooked grin. “We used to tease him about needing to spend time in the sun to gain a bit of color.”
“I remember that, and he hated coffee. He’s the only one of us who didn’t drink coffee.” Erick smiled with the memories. The others all pitched in with the bits and pieces they knew about Mouse as Erick wrote it all down. He realized it was all disjointed, and nobody had a clear sense of Mouse’s beginnings. “Do you think he did that on purpose?”
“Did what?” Cade asked.
“Deliberately shrouded his history?” Erick stated. “Or maybe created different histories in order to make him feel better about his life?”
“He didn’t have an easy childhood, I know that,” Badger said suddenly. “His body was quite scarred.”
The men frowned, thinking about that.
“Did he go into the navy to escape, do you think?” Kat asked.
Badger shrugged. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”
“And then the question becomes, to get away from what?” Kat asked.
Badger said quietly, “Every time I rack my brain to think of someone Mouse might have mentioned on his leaves, my mind draws a blank.”
“What about girlfriends?” Clary asked. Her question landed in the middle of the group like a stone in a pond. Almost as if ripples of shock moved outward continuously.
Laszlo studied her for a long moment. “Mouse was gay.”
She raised her eyebrows. “That could not have been easy in the military.”
He shook his head. “Not only was it not easy, he took a lot of razzing because of it. Not from us,” he assured her hurriedly. “Not on that issue. But from a lot of the other guys.”
“So maybe you guys weren’t all targeted,” she said quietly.
“Maybe Mouse was,” Kat interjected. “How bad was it for somebody like Mouse?”
The men exchanged glances.
“Before he joined our unit, it was bad,” Badger said.
“Suicidally bad?” asked Honey, her voice soft, gentle. “I’m sure the comments and actions would have hurt him inside, even if he didn’t let anyone see his reaction.”
Erick shrugged. “We never asked him about his sexuality that I know of.” He glanced around the room. “At least I didn’t. Did anyone here?”
All the men shook their heads.
“No, we never did,” Badger said.
“So, if he didn’t have any girlfriends, what do you know about his boyfriends?” Clary asked. “Because, if it wasn’t a family member, we already know it’s somebody who feels very strongly about Mouse. And that usually means it’s a lover. Do you guys know who loved Mouse? Did he have anybody in his life? Did he have a permanent relationship or any off-and-on relationships?” She turned to stare at them. “Surely if you were all best friends and you know so much about each other, you’d know as much about Mouse?”
One by one they all turned to look at each other, then cast their gazes downward.
“He didn’t talk to us,” Badger said quietly. “I don’t think he was ashamed as much as he was afraid of being humiliated or embarrassed, like he always had been.”
“How long was he with you before the accident?”
Laszlo sighed. “One year. And in that year we couldn’t convince him that he was safe with us.”
“But obviously he wasn’t safe,” Talon said quietly. “Not when he’s the only one dead.”
Laszlo asked, “So where do I go next?”
“You?” Talon asked. “Why you?”
“Because you’re laid up. So I’m the one who’ll lead this next mission,” he snapped. “And I’m totally okay if Geir comes along. But where are we going?”
“You’ll go to Texas,” Erick said quietly. “If that’s where Mouse is from.”
“Done,” Laszlo said. “I’ll head to Texas and find out for sure.”
“And then what?” Clary asked.
“And then we’ll start really tearing apart poor Mouse’s life,” Laszlo said. “Way deeper than we have done so far.”
Clary nodded. “When you find whoever loves him, go easy. It’s hard to lose someone you care about.”
Laszlo’s smile was diamond hard. “So very true. But it’s also no excuse to go around killing others who loved him too.”
This concludes Book 4 of SEALs of Steel: Talon.
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