Target of Mine

Chapter 2-3

A massive black SUV with tinted windows was the unknown vehicle in the parking lot.

“Wondered when you’d notice. Now you’re going to have serious truck envy too,” Nikita sounded thoroughly disgusted.

He just shrugged nonchalantly, but he thought it was seriously cool. Way better than his ten-year-old battered-blue Ford Ranger.

Another vehicle rolled in, a base Hummer.

“When it rains…” Drake recognized the passenger before he climbed out: Colonel Cass McDermott, the commander of the entire Night Stalkers 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Drake hadn’t seen him since the night the 5E was formed up right here at these picnic tables a year ago.

“…Oobleck falls from the sky.”

Drake looked over at Nikita.

“I’m a Dr. Seuss fan. So sue me.”

He laughed at the sudden image of Nikita Hayward as a little girl intently studying a book about a boy trying to save his kingdom from sticky green goo falling out of the sky. The mission to save the kingdom made sense for a future Navy SEAL, but Nikita as a young girl was almost impossible to imagine. Though if she’d worn pigtails as a kid, he definitely wanted to see a picture.

It was difficult reconciling her looks with who she was. By her looks she could have been the nice girl next door. But he’d seen this “girl” swing on a sixty-pound pack as easily as he could sling a rifle, and he’d watched her shoot to kill.

The casual ease of her soft Southern accent would never have flown at Andover Prep—whereas his own moneyed Boston had fit right in. She was like an education in how narrow his world had been before joining the military. But any thought that Southern meant slow or mild was blown away by one look in her brown eyes—she missed nothing of what was going on around her. He could see her mind working every moment behind those eyes.

At the picnic table, Pete and Danielle sat facing the two strangers. The two couples were eyeing each other in silent suspicion. Even Danielle’s unflappable Quebecois politeness appeared strained.

“Who are—” Major Pete Napier and the big guy snarled at each other almost in unison. Then they held a glaring contest before both turned their ire toward the Colonel.

Colonel McDermott pulled up a chair and sat at the end of the table as if joining a jovial party.

Lieutenant Commander Luke Altman, Nikita’s boss, came to stand on Drake’s other side. Not many men could make him feel small, but Altman was even more physically imposing than the stranger. Luke Altman wasn’t even the sort of guy you’d eventually call by his first name—he’d never be “my buddy Luke”, he’d simply be “Altman” or maybe Lieutenant Commander.

By the time they were all gathered around the table—five of the fifteen Night Stalkers who made up the 5E, two SEALs, the strangers, and the colonel—full dark had descended and, along with it, an Arctic chill that had nothing to do with the balmy September night. The cicadas and frogs seemed to be the only ones happy at the moment.

Drake did his best to pretend that he wasn’t trapped between the two ST6 SEALs, but was standing there because he belonged—lined up like they were a Greek chorus to narrate the drama about to unfold. Someone fetched a Coleman lantern and dropped it on the table, lighting everyone in strange shadows. Someone else dropped a case of beer on the table—which meant no flights tomorrow, no battle flights anyway. He wanted to step forward to take one, but neither of the ST6 operators moved, so he stayed put.

“So tell it,” Colonel McDermott said to no one in particular as he twisted a cap off a beer.

“Why?” The big guy snarled back. And in that moment, Nikita knew what he was because no one who was still military would talk back to a bird colonel that way. He wasn’t a US Army Ranger, he was a former US Army Ranger.

“Mercenary,” it came out as no more than a whisper, but his gaze shot to her. His smile built—it was not friendly.

“I’m a contractor. Always on behalf of my country. My Titan team takes on the messes you military types couldn’t handle if your lives depended on it. What are you, missy?” He grabbed two beers, opening one for the woman beside him. Then he tipped his own toward Nikita like he was aiming a g*n.

Titan. Probably the toughest military contractors in the business. They were the baddest-a*s door-kickers out there. Their rep was good. But still goddamn vigilantes—just ones with a big budget and a government sanction.

Nikita wouldn’t mind telling him exactly who she was, but DEVGRU operators didn’t go around announcing themselves to the general public—except for a couple of the guys on the bin Laden raid with no sense of silence. Luke Altman had never said a word about it, though she was fairly sure he’d been in on that mission.

This guy needed a different answer.

“I can tell you what I’m not.”

“Oh, bring it on,” he thumped his beer on the table, then crossed his arms over his big chest and glared at her. In a pissing contest, you didn’t look away, so she couldn’t see how the others were reacting except for Sugar. She sat close beside the big man and was slowly shaking her head in amusement—as if she knew what was about to land on her companion’s head and couldn’t wait to watch. Nikita could almost like her for that.

“I’m not from a team that levels an entire South American villa in a bang so big that I could hear it while stretched out all comfortable in my bunk at Fort Bragg,” which was not her real base. That was at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach along with the rest of DEVGRU.

That got his attention. He clearly didn’t like that she knew that about him. She’d always kept track of the main “contractors.” Ever since— No! She wasn’t going to think about that.

“No running attacks back and forth across the hills and hollers outside Charlottesville, Virginia. No g*n battles shredding up multiple floors of an Abu Dhabi hotel. Y’all Ranger types are great at kicking down them doors. When I go through one, nobody knows I’ve been there, asshole.” Name calling was lame, but she couldn’t stop herself. And where the Southern hick was coming from she had no idea. But Nikita knew where her emotional heat was coming from, had spent most of her adult life trying to ignore it. Now she had her past chilled down to the point where it took someone like this over-confident bastard to drag it back to the surface. She didn’t appreciate it.

“How the hell do you know all—” The guy shut his trap and glared at her, his eyes momentarily shifting from merely black to carbonized steel. Then he glanced around the circle and she could see him start thinking—finally. She didn’t look aside, but had the impression that all of the others were remaining impassive, revealing nothing.

Sugar started to giggle. She tried to hide it in a swallow of beer but didn’t make it.

He glared at her.

Sugar broke into laughter and began poking at the man’s ribs with a red manicured nail. “She got you, J-dawg. She so got you. That’s exactly who you are.”

“s**t!” J-dawg scrubbed a hand over his face. A smile actually cracked his stern features. “Between Sugar and Nicole, you think I’d have learned about women who know how to fight.”

“Just wait until Asal grows up. Our girl will teach you a thing or two about warrior women.”

He pulled his companion in and kissed her on top of the head with a surprising tenderness. “She already has, damned kid.”

He eyed the circle of people once more, keeping his arm around Sugar’s shoulders a moment longer.

This time Nikita let herself look around as well. Of the five Night Stalkers present, two were women and neither of them looked any happier with this guy than she felt.

“Not my best meet and greet, I suppose.”

“No s**t, J-dawg!” For a moment Nikita wished she was her movie namesake rather than a SEAL. La Femme Nikita wouldn’t hesitate for a second to unsling the rifle over her shoulder and see how a mercenary liked staring down the barrel from two meters out. That’s how welcome he was.

“Only Lily gets to call me J-dawg. Name is Jared. And I’m the only one who gets to call her that. She’s Sugar to the rest of you.”

“Lotta rules there, J-dawg.” Not a chance in hell of her cutting a mercenary any slack.

He inspected the circle again, then pointed at the line of her, Drake, and Altman. “What are you three? You sure aren’t flyboys.”

“Hello! Not a boy!”

J-dawg ignored her and looked to Colonel McDermott, who had apparently been enjoying the whole scene.

“Who the hell are they?”

“The two on the outsides are the reason you’re here.” Then McDermott scowled at Drake, “The guy in the middle? We’ll be damned if we know what he is.”

She couldn’t tell if Drake was unhappier with McDermott’s tease or her laugh right in his face.