The hostages stumbled to their feet and Gage turned his flashlight on them. The beam illuminated two slightly built Afghani men and a fortyish woman.
"Lieutenant Gage Brewer, U.S. Navy." He zeroed in on the woman. "Ma'am, are you--"
"Betsy Bauer." She reached out and touched his arm, as if to make sure he was real. "And I've never been so glad to see anyone in my life."
Vaughn tromped down the steps to join them. "All clear up there." He held up a black piece of cloth. It was a flag with a skull and a sword painted on it, and Gage recognized it from the video footage.
He'd found the beheading room.
"Anyone injured?" This from Dietz, the team corpsman. "Anything that might prevent you from--"
"We're fine." Betsy Bauer cast a worried look at the door. "Let's just get out of here."
Gage's thoughts exactly. He led everyone up the stairs. Mays and Dietz guarded their flanks and Vaughn watched their six.
"Five minutes," Vaughn said from the back.
They were ahead of schedule. Another stroke of luck. More than four minutes until their helo would drop down in a nearby field. The other half of their squad would already be on it, after having spent a few minutes pretending to be ambushed by Taliban fighters before vanishing into the night.
Gage started to get anxious as he neared the door. That damned sixth sense again...
His gaze landed on something long and black sticking out from the back of one of the trucks. He jogged over to investigate.
"Holy shit."
"What is it?" Mays asked.
Gage blinked down at the truck bed. "I'm looking at a shit-ton of weapons. RPGs, AKs, a couple of Carl Gs." He glanced up at Vaughn and a flash of understanding passed between them.
"Let's hit the extraction point," Gage said, jogging back to the group. He checked the surrounding area before hustling the hostages to a nearby clearing. Gage watched the reporter, relieved that she seemed to be moving okay. No telling what hell she'd endured these past forty-eight hours.
A familiar whump whump grew louder as their helo approached. Gage scanned the area, ready to eliminate anything that might try to botch their extraction. Dust and trash kicked up as the Seahawk dropped down onto the landing zone. Gage loaded in the hostages, then counted the heads inside. Every man in Alpha squad accounted for. They were good to go.
Another glance at Vaughn. He was a demo man, as was Gage, and they were thinking the same thing.
"Two minutes," Gage yelled at his commanding officer.
Dirt tornadoed around them as Gage squinted into the Seahawk. It was too loud--and time was too short--for him to explain what he wanted to do. It was a critical moment. Did his CO trust him or not? The officer gave a brief nod.
Gage and Vaughn took off at a dead run. In under ninety seconds they had the two truck beds rigged with enough C-4 to blow up a tank. No way were they going to leave a fuckload of ordnance around for the enemy to use against U.S. troops.
"Ten seconds," Vaughn said.
Gage's heart pounded as he added more C-4, just to be sure. Then they got the hell out.
Less than a minute later, an earsplitting blast ripped the night. Gage's face hit the dirt. The earth shook beneath him as the building fireballed and then fireballed again. Debris rained down around him--concrete, mud, chunks of brick.
Burning embers pelted him as he tried to move, but his body seemed cemented to the ground. Vaughn grabbed his flak vest and hauled him to his feet just as a truck careened around a corner and barreled straight for them.
"Go, go, go!"
They leaped for the helo as a dozen arms reached out to pull them aboard. And then Gage was inside, his heart hammering, his face pressed flat against the metal floor as the Seahawk lifted into the air. Machine-gun fire sputtered below, and Gage sat up, shocked. He gazed down at the inferno. He glanced at Vaughn.
A little too much boom, his friend's look seemed to say, and Gage smiled. He couldn't believe they'd made it out of there unscathed.
A bullet whizzed past his cheek. Gage whirled around.
He wouldn't smile again for a very long time.
Lower Pecos River Valley, Texas
Three months later
KELSEY QUINN CROUCHED at the bottom of the damp grave, her heart pounding against her sternum.
It couldn't be. She'd shot this sector with the radar herself. And yet as she dragged the trowel ever so gently across the earth, she felt it again--that barely perceptible resistance.
"Kelsey?"
Reaching for the sable hair brush tucked into the back pocket of her shorts, she bent closer to the patch of dirt. She dusted away a layer of silt, blew, then dusted again. Sweat trickled between her shoulder blades. She held her breath as the smooth slope of a cranium began to emerge.
"Kelsey?"
Her brush moved swiftly now, in time with her pulse. Cranial sutures not yet fused. It was a child.
"Dr. Quinn?"
Everything went dark. Kelsey's gaze snapped to the person who'd stepped in front of the lamp. She recognized her field assistant's gangly silhouette instantly.
"Yes, Aaron?"
"There's a message for you. From your mother."
She stared at him, taking a moment to comprehend the words.
A message from her mother? Besides a few e-mails, she hadn't heard from her mom in weeks. For her to call in the middle of a field school must mean something important.
Aaron stepped out of the light and Kelsey squinted at the glare. She glanced down again at her discovery, then sat back on her haunches.
"We have another one." She couldn't suppress the excitement in her voice. "Tell Dr. Robles I've got a cranium."
Kelsey got to her feet and pulled off her baseball cap. Another burial. And in their last week, too. She didn't know why, but for some reason the best finds always came at the end of a dig.
Kelsey mopped the sweat from her brow and hiked up the four rough-hewn stairs to the top of the pit. Situated at the mouth of the cave, this particular sector had been worked first and was declared finished weeks ago. Kelsey had spent her first three weeks in this pit, sifting through dirt and lifting ancient bones from the soil. Her last week on the dig, and she'd returned here why? Nostalgia, maybe? Instinct? The nagging hunch that there was something more to find?
Kelsey stepped from the dimness of the cave into the blinding sunlight. The sky was a rich, cerulean blue. This morning's mist had been vaporized hours ago, and several wilted anthropology and archaeology students were standing beneath a tarp, trying to catch some shade as they swilled Evian water.
You can take the kids out of the city....
She put her cap on again, pulling her ponytail through the hole in the back. She glanced down at the smudged slip of paper Aaron had handed her. Call your uncle Joe. Love, Mom, followed by a phone number. The area code was San Diego, where her uncle lived and where Kelsey had spent a huge chunk of her hugely chunky childhood.
Her mother had tracked her down in the west Texas desert because Joe needed to talk to her? Kelsey sensed a trap, but she didn't have the first clue as to what it could be.
She scoured the cluttered campsite until she found the satellite phone beneath a table crammed with plastic containers. It took ten minutes and three attempts before she reached her uncle at the naval base. He was stateside for a change, not off fighting bad guys with his team of SEALs.
"Quinn here."
Despite the heat and the mystery and her annoyance at being pulled away from an important find, Kelsey smiled. "You needed to talk to me?"
"Kelsey. How's it going?" His voice was brisk, but she heard the fondness in it, and her smile widened. Whatever this was, it wasn't some horrible emergency.
"Pretty good," she said, "considering it's a hundred and ten degrees out and I haven't had a shower in two days. How's it going with you?"
"Listen, your mom called last night. She's worried about you."
"Oh my God, she didn't. Is this about that girl
from Del Rio?"
Pause. Kelsey's anger bubbled up as she put it all together.
"She tells me you're alone out there digging up bones--"
"Amazing. This is amazing." She fisted her hand on her hip in frustration. "I told her when she e-mailed me that article that she's way overreacting."
"You're telling me some woman didn't get dragged from her car and shot, not twenty miles from where you are?"
"People get shot all the time! You live in San Diego, for Christ's sake. It happens every day!"
Another pause, and she could picture her father's brother frowning down at the phone. She was being disrespectful, and if there was one thing Lieutenant Commander Joseph Quinn had harped on her entire life it was respect.
"Joe, really. I'm fine. And I'm definitely not alone. I'm out here with dozens of people--"
"Camping by yourself at night, though, right? Just you and that seventy-two-year-old professor?"
"We're in campers," she said, hoping he picked up on the plural. Did he really think she was shacked up with Dr. Robles? Eew.
Kelsey glanced around impatiently. A trio of students stood at one of the tables, their heads bowed over various labeling tasks while they pretended not to eavesdrop. Kelsey needed to wrap this up. At twenty-eight, she was considered a mere toddler in academic circles, and she already had enough trouble getting students to take her seriously. Her kick-ass job at a world-renowned forensics lab, which set her apart from the rest of the university faculty, was her saving grace. But even her job at the Delphi Center couldn't salvage her reputation if word got out that her mommy had been calling her at a dig to fret over safety.
"Listen, Joe, I appreciate the call. I really do--"
"I'm sending someone out there," he bowled right over her. "He should be there today, about sixteen hundred."
Four heads turned as a car rumbled up the dirt road leading to the dig site.
Sixteen hundred. Kelsey's mind reeled. She clutched the phone to her ear and stared, stupefied, as the car-that-turned-out-to-be-a-pickup-truck rolled to a stop beside the row of SUVs. Dust coated the truck's sides and tires. Smashed bugs dotted the windshield, hinting at a lengthy trip. The door pushed open and a man climbed out.
But he wasn't a man, really--he was a giant. He stood well over six feet tall, with wide shoulders and muscular arms that screamed warrior. His olive-drab T-shirt stretched taut over his pecs, and he leaned an elbow on the roof of the truck while he scanned the area.
His gaze landed on Kelsey and her throat went dry.
"Kelsey? You there?"
"You sent me a SEAL?" she choked.
"His name's Lieutenant Gage Brewer, Team Nine, Alpha squad. Like I said, he should be there by sixteen hundred. He's got two weeks' leave, so it worked out perfectly."
"You hired someone to... to--"
"He owes me a favor. It's no big deal, really. This'll be a silver-bullet assignment for him. He's looking forward to it."
Lieutenant Whoever-He-Was reached up and peeled off his sunglasses to reveal a pair of laser-blue eyes as hard and unyielding as the rest of him. Looking forward to it. Yeah, right. This guy was so not happy to be here.
He slammed the door of his truck and strode toward her.
Two
"Kelsey Quinn?"
Her ability to speak evaporated as she stared up at him.
"Gage Brewer," he said. "I'm here to sign up for your dig."
Sign up for your dig. Right now. Today. The field school had only a week remaining, and every last person here had been toiling in the sun all summer.
His gaze bored into hers, daring her to challenge him. Damn right she'd challenge him. As soon as she could talk.
She glanced around.
And as soon as she could get away from all the prying eyes of her students.
"Glad you made it." She forced a smile. "Right this way, please."
She started for her camper, then realized it would look strange, disappearing into a private room with a man she'd only just met. She changed course, heading for a rocky outcropping about a hundred yards away. The petroglyphs. They'd be within plain view but well out of earshot.
"So you're thinking of joining us. Why don't I give you a tour of the site and you can make up your mind?"
He followed silently, his gaze scanning the horizon looking for... what? Rapists? Mountain lions? Serial killers?
"Where, exactly, did you come from?" she asked when they'd reached a safe distance.
"California."
"You drove here from San Diego? At my uncle's request?"
He said nothing to this, just followed her strides across the rocky terrain.
"Listen, Lieutenant--" She suddenly blanked on his name.
"Brewer," he supplied. "And you can call me Gage."
"All right. Gage. I'm not sure what my uncle told you, but your being here, it really isn't necessary. My colleagues and I are--"
"He told me his niece needed protection. I told him I'd come. When you're safely packed up and headed back home, I'll return to San Diego, mission accomplished."
Kelsey picked her way over the stony creek bed, fighting back tears of frustration as she listened to him talk. He was just like Joe, just like the stubborn, mule-headed man who had been a father to her most of her life. Good God, she'd never get rid of this guy. He considered her his mission.
Kelsey scaled the side of the creek, grabbing a branch to heft herself up. It snapped free and she fell backward. A pair of enormous hands caught her shoulders.
"Easy there."
Her pulse skipped as the feel of him, the smell of him permeated her brain. A jolt of raw sexual awareness zinged through her, and she scrambled away.
Was that what this was about? Was her mother matchmaking with one of her uncle's SEALs? The idea was unbearable. Mortifying. She felt color flooding her already pink cheeks.
And it suddenly hit her. She must look like roadkill. She was grimy, sunburned, and her last encounter with a mascara wand had been before Memorial Day.
Kelsey scurried up the hillside to the limestone escarpment that looked out over the valley and into Mexico. She ducked under the shade of an overhang and stopped beside a wall of rock decorated with ancient engravings. She turned to face the lieutenant, waiting until her eyes adjusted to the dimness so that she could read his expression.
He stopped, maintaining a respectful distance from her as he folded his arms over his chest.
Kelsey tried to sound composed. "My uncle is your commanding officer, is that correct?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"And your commanding officer asked you--as some sort of favor--to come protect me for the duration of my job here, is that it?"
"That's correct, ma'am."
She closed her eyes. "Please don't call me 'ma'am' again, okay? I mean, you're probably older than I am."
He didn't comment, even though she felt certain he knew precisely how old she was. Her uncle had probably given him her bio, for heaven's sake. That's how Joe worked. Every mission came with a file, a set of facts to be committed to memory. Kelsey remembered the Abe Lincoln project from fifth grade, the one that--according to Joe--couldn't be undertaken until she'd memorized the Gettysburg Address.
She shook off the memory. "So your being here, it's not really a direct order, is that right? I mean, you're not going to get fired if you don't--"
"Joe Quinn asked me to come, so I came. It's that simple." Something sparked in his eyes, and she sensed that whatever had brought him here wasn't simple at all.
"This may be simple for you but it's not for me," she said. "I'm the field supervisor here. I'm in charge of eighteen graduate students and six undergrads. I have research to conduct, reports to write, grades to submit, and a professional reputation to uphold. How do you think it looks when my uncle sends out some hired hunk of muscle to protect me from the bogeyman?"
He eyed her coolly, not even flinching at her "hired hunk of muscle" comment, which had been intended to piss him of
f. Kelsey knew the SEAL code. And she knew whatever debt this man owed Joe it had nothing to do with money.
He nodded slightly. "That Ruger you got strapped to your belt, what's that for?"
Kelsey's gaze snapped to her holster. She'd become so accustomed to it that she didn't even notice it anymore.
She looked up and cleared her throat. "This isn't Disneyland. We get mountain lions and rattlesnakes around here."
He lifted an eyebrow. "Coyotes, mules, maybe even a few border bandits?"
Her gaze narrowed.
"Don't get me wrong. It's a nice weapon." He paused. "You know how to use it?"
"Of course."
"And when'd you get the holster?"
She didn't answer.
"I'm guessing back home in San Marcos, you usually carry it in your purse, right?"
So Joe had told him about her. At least where she lived. What else had Joe told him? Had he mentioned how her boyfriend had dumped her six months ago?
"When'd you get the holster, Kelsey?"
She squared her shoulders. "Five weeks ago."
He nodded. "After the second breakin. That was your camper, right? The first was Dr. Robles."
She bit her lip.
"And then when that woman was dragged from her car and murdered last week, not ten minutes from here, I bet that made you think twice, right?"
She didn't say anything.
"Your uncle cares about you. He told me you're a smart woman." He stepped closer until he was towering over her. "He also told me to provide protection for you while you finish your work here, and I agreed." He unfolded his arms and planted his hands on his hips. "I'm not here to get in your way or get in your business. You want to keep this between you and your uncle? Fine by me. Call me a graduate student and hand me a shovel. But I made a promise to Joe and I intend to keep it."
Kelsey recognized defeat when it was staring her in the face.
And anyway he was right. She hadn't had a decent night's sleep in nearly a week, not since the sheriff had visited the dig site to inform them of the nearby murder and ask if they'd seen or heard anything suspicious.
Kelsey hadn't. But she'd been in a state of anxious hyperawareness ever since. Just hiking out to this cliff was the farthest she'd ventured away from the group in days.