Midnight Trust

Chapter 3

3

“Awe. Aren’t you two just the sweetest thing? Too bad neither of you can keep watch for s**t and you’re both dead now.”

“I would suggest great care about the next words you utter, they could be your last.” Tanya had spotted the lone man prowling along the river’s edge ten minutes ago. She and Chad were barely hidden by the ceiba’s buttress-root shadow in the morning light, so it had seemed ill-advised to wake him and try to move. The morning sun was to the newcomer’s back, so she couldn’t see his face.

“What are you talking about, sweetheart?”

She shifted her hand to reveal the Uzi Pro she’d had zeroed on his face since the moment he came into range. The weapon was based on a Micro Uzi and could unleash 9 mm submachine gun hell from the two-kilo weapon that fit under her arm. At this range, she couldn’t miss if she tried.

“I told you he’d be fine,” a lovely woman with a soft Spanish accent stepped around the towering buttress root from the other side. Her own Glock 19 Compact sidearm appeared to be lazily held, but its silencer was centered at Tanya’s heart.

Tanya flinched. She couldn’t help it, the woman had approached from behind with no warning. It took an immense amount of fieldcraft to fool Tanya’s training.

“Oh, hey.” Chad woke and raised his head from where he’d spent the night slumped against her.

If he hadn’t mumbled something about being on solo recon, she might have shoved him off to the other side. But solo recon was tough. She’d done there and been that—it was her usual mode of operation.

Been there and done that? Being around Chad, she could feel the weakness of her American idiom and didn’t like that at all. She’d had little opportunity to polish it, serving undercover in South America for the last five years.

She knew what solo recon took out of a person when you didn’t dare sleep for a couple of days. Besides, it had been nice having him sleep on her shoulder as if he trusted her. It was a mistake; people in their line of work couldn’t afford to trust anyone. But still, it was…nice.

“How you doing, Sofia?” Chad’s familiar greeting didn’t cause her aim to waver from Tanya’s heart in the least.

“I’m good, now that we’ve found you. Tell your friend to stop pointing her gun at my husband’s face.”

“Chill, Tanya.”

“Tanya?” The man startled. “s**t, didn’t recognize you in all the gear and with Sleeping Beauty napping on your shoulder like the little princess he is.”

“Go to hell, Duane.”

“After you, dude.”

Tanya, in turn, hadn’t recognized Duane. Three years and a lot of hard missions had gone by since they’d fought on the same team, but it wasn’t like her to miss recognizing a man’s gait, even with the sun behind him. There was something else. Duane and the lovely Latina Sofia…

“Marriage looks like good clothes on you, Duane,” Tanya re-slung her weapon that she’d instinctively hung on to during the double fall last night. She was pleased to see that Chad didn’t have his rifle, though his sidearm was still in its holster at the center of his gut.

“…fits you well,” Chad mumbled in her ear.

Tanya ignored him. Had marriage changed Duane somehow? He’d always had Delta level fieldcraft, but he’d moved differently. As if…

Scheisse!

She should have seen it. He hadn’t only been searching for them. He’d also been keeping a careful eye on his wife in the background without seeming to. Tanya should have spotted that he was watching someone behind her and Chad’s position, but his craft was good enough that she hadn’t caught on.

“It agrees with me.” He slung his rifle over his shoulder with a negligent shrug.

“It is a good thing that you say that,” Sofia kept her weapon loose but did shift its aim to Tanya’s leg instead of her chest. “Now who are you?”

“Chad’s one that got away,” Duane explained.

“No I’m not.” Tanya wasn’t anyone’s anything.

“So are, babe.”

“Watch who you call ‘babe’, bro,” Chad’s growl actually sounded for real.

“Or you may find yourself sleeping alone tonight.” Sofia agreed as she squatted on the soil near Chad’s feet and finally holstered her weapon.

She seemed too slight to be a Delta Force operative. The American unit’s selection practices didn’t particularly favor size, but it was hard to believe that this slip of a woman could possibly deliver the level of endurance needed. And there was something odd about her attitude, as if weapons weren’t her primary tool.

“Tell me.” And in that instant, the woman shifted. A quiet intensity slid over her.

Chad started in, but not about the fall that should have killed them both nor the flight over a jungle waterfall—which she could now see towering in the distance by the light of day and there is no way they should have survived. Instead, he was breaking down a series of observations about a drug smugglers’ camp, somewhere different than the lab that had been the focus of her team’s failed attack. Patrol timings, perimeter defenses, even delivery schedules.

“How long were you out there?”

“Four days,” he barely interrupted the flow of his debrief to answer Tanya’s question.

She’d forgotten how much she liked that about Chad. He might appear the chuckleheaded, laughing-boy American, but his mind was pure Special Operations. He’d missed nothing. He even had the timings of nighttime patrols—all in his head, all crosschecked over multiple nights. To do that for four days on solo recon, no wonder he’d slept like the dead on her shoulder.

And this Sofia simply squatted and listened while Chad talked and Duane continued a slow patrol around the area. From her small pack, Sofia pulled out a tablet computer and selected an image, before handing it to Chad.

“Again.”

And Chad repeated it all, this time placing markers on the drone’s view image, but finding little new to add to his narrative.

Tanya recognized the methods, if not the person. Long ago, a Night Stalkers team had nearly died because of a mole in the Intelligence Support Activity—the most elite intel group in the entire US military, specifically servicing Special Operations. Sofia must have been recruited from some top-level military intelligence to Delta Force—which meant she had amazing skills in two areas.

When he was done, Sofia tipped her head in the characteristic move of someone listening to a radio call. She must be wearing an earbud under her long dark hair.

“Carla wants to know if you’re up for this?” Sofia asked.

“Sure,” Chad pulled down some more bananas and tossed a couple to her for breakfast. “Want ta come play, Tanya?”

“Your knee.”

He flexed his leg. “Still sore. I’ll just chew some ibuprofen or something; shouldn’t be an issue.”

Last night he had hung on to her like it was broken. Need a crutch or an ambulance? She’d give him a crutch right across his head.

“You just wanted an excuse to hang all on me.”

“An awesome bonus,” Chad winked.

And she’d fallen for it. Well, that wasn’t going to happen again. She turned to Sofia, who was watching them closely.

“Just give me something to shoot.”

Sofia smiled, “I think we can do that.”

“Oh,” Chad signaled for Sofia to wait a moment. “Ask Richie to find out what happened to Tanya’s people. She came aboard the helo with three of them last night. One dead, one alive, but I was sort of moving fast and couldn’t slow down enough to see about the third.”

Sofia didn’t even bother to repeat the question. So, Chad’s entire debrief had been broadcast to the whole group. As usual with this team, everyone knew everything from the first moment—except her.

Carl was dead. Crap! She’d known it, even as she’d snapped the monkey line on his chest. And this was Chad’s other side. A fine sniper, and a soldier who always kept his wits and his sense of humor. But he’d also shown a thoughtful side that was wholly unexpected from a man who projected macho jerk so effectively.

As Kidon, she was far more used to operating alone. Integrating with the UN security team—that had dissolved so catastrophically last night—hadn’t been her usual mode.

“The guy is fine—they’re giving him a new section of bone in his arm. The woman is just out of surgery, but will keep the leg.” Sofia echoed the information coming in over her radio.

Well, compared to the dead third member, that was some very good news.

Still, she had a few thoughts about what to do to Chad’s other knee.