Hot SEAL (2 page)

“You the frogman?” one of the dudes asked.

“You the ground pounder?” Dane returned.

One of the other guys snorted. “Yeah, that’s Iceman all right. He pounds the ground pretty regularly. When he’s not pounding a certain senator’s daughter.”

“Shut up, fuckhead,” the one named Iceman growled. “That’s my fiancée you’re talking about.”

“Sorry, Ice. Couldn’t resist.”

“You’d better be sorry or I’ll pound your face for you. Then what, pretty boy?”

Dane turned away and opened the locker he’d been assigned. All his gear was there. He didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do with any of it while here, but he supposed Colonel Mendez would waste no time in letting him know.

“Hey, frogman, we didn’t mean to insult you or anything,” the second guy said, and Dane turned around again.
 

The man walked over and held out his hand. “Chase Daniels. Welcome to HOT.”

Dane eyed the guy for a second before he gripped the offered hand. “Dane Erikson.”

They engaged in that age-old ritual guys have of squeezing the daylights out of each other before they let go again.

The other guys in the room stood and came over to thrust out hands. After introductions and handshakes all around, the bones in Dane’s hand felt decidedly bruised. He couldn’t tell if they’d done it on purpose or if they were being nice. Though he nearly laughed to think of a roomful of Special Ops warriors being nice.

But they were a brotherhood, even if they were different services. SEALs worked with other services on operations. Dane had worked with Delta Force, Marine Force Recon, Air Force PJs, the CIA, ATF, and DEA in the past.
 

But he’d never worked with HOT. Hell, he hadn’t thought they existed. If Delta Force was the Army’s secretive arm, then HOT was their invisible one. The guys just didn’t exist.

Except they did, because he was standing here with them. Idly, he wondered if his father knew. General Erikson had been an Airborne Ranger back in the day. He worked at the Pentagon now, doing God knew what since Dane rarely spoke to him.

In fact, he didn’t particularly like being within close driving distance of the old man. Not that he felt compelled to visit or anything. Their relationship was best when carried out over the phone.

But his mother would expect him, and he could hardly refuse her. He drew the line at regular Sunday dinners, though he’d have to show up for a couple here and there.

He didn’t plan on informing his parents of his new assignment for as long as possible. For all he knew, it wouldn’t last anyway. He’d piss this colonel off, and he’d be bounced back to Virginia Beach before he could count to ten.

Hell, he kind of hoped that was the case. Except, fuck, he was definitely curious now that he was here. This facility was equipped with stuff he’d thought was still in the testing phase, and the gear was more than a little bit interesting. He at least wanted to be here long enough to explore.

“Colonel wants us,” a man said, peeking his head into the room.

Everyone dropped what they were doing and headed for the door. Dane wasn’t planning to go, but then Chase stopped and looked at him.

“He means you too.”

Dane shut his locker and trailed after the group of men walking down the hallway. They passed into a big conference room and took seats around a table. There was a whiteboard on one wall and a projector overhead.
 

Dane took a seat in a leather chair just about the time someone shot to attention. The rest of the men followed suit. Dane automatically joined them as Colonel Mendez walked into the room.

“At ease,” he said, and they sank back down on their chairs. His gaze landed on Dane.

“We’re glad you could join us, Lieutenant.” Mendez opened up the laptop sitting at the head of the table and tapped some keys. “We have an interesting situation in Colombia. Our Navy man should be particularly fascinated.”

Dane glanced at the others. There were puzzled looks on a few faces as the whiteboard flashed to life.

A satellite shot of a jungle appeared on-screen. There were white-roofed buildings spread out around the area and a fence around the perimeter. Drug runners, probably.

There was also a curl of dark water winding through the jungle near the compound. And then Mendez zoomed in and revealed an object in a small clearing. It was big, torpedo-shaped—

Dane stood before he realized he’d done so. All eyes turned to him. The colonel was watching him with an uplifted brow.

“What do you see here?”

Dane moved closer, studying the object. He’d heard of these things, but this one was bigger than was typical. Yet it was what it was.

“I see a submarine, sir.”

Mendez nodded. “That’s right. Intel indicated there was only one of them finished, but another was in the process of being built.” He pressed a button and a new slide flashed up on the screen. This one contained specs for the submarine. Specs that chilled Dane. This wasn’t your typical floating coffin the drug runners used. This was something different.

“Sir,” Dane said, and the colonel looked at him. He cleared his throat. “Isn’t this the kind of thing the Navy usually deals with?”

Or the DEA since the damn thing belonged to drug runners. He hated thinking about the DEA because that inevitably brought thoughts of his ex-wife, but this was exactly the kind of thing they would be interested in.

“Typically, yes.” The colonel brought up another slide. “But here’s the reason we’re involved.”

This picture was of bodies strewn about the compound. The next picture showed a wrecked shipyard with charred debris—and no sign of the finished sub. There was another sub form, but it was clearly in the process of being built.

“We’ve had intel indicating the Freedom Force is pursuing a plan to make a dirty bomb and detonate it somewhere on the Eastern Seaboard. That’s not anything new. But then we received information two weeks ago that said they were in active negotiations with the Ruiz family to have them build a sub. There was supposed to be a meeting, an exchange of money—but it seems our friends from Qu’rim were impatient after being taken to inspect the equipment. They ambushed the makeshift shipyard and absconded with the finished sub.”

“Fuck me,” one of the other guys said.
 

Another cleared his throat. This one was the officer in charge of the team. Matt “Richie Rich” Girard.
 

“So the Freedom Force wants to detonate a dirty bomb on the Eastern Seaboard—and now they have the delivery system to get by our defenses.”

“The Navy will find that thing,” Dane said. “It can’t be that difficult. Set up a dragnet and go after them.”

The colonel shook his head. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you? But you saw the specs.”
 

He pulled up another slide, this one an analysis of the capabilities of the sub.

Silent… Submergible to a depth of eighteen hundred feet… ten days without refueling… could render radar detection useless… highly dangerous as a method of infiltration into US waters…

A chill ran down Dane’s spine. If the damn sub was undetectable to the Navy, that wasn’t a good thing at all.

“It gets worse,” Mendez said. “The DEA traced the sub to Cartagena, where a dockworker reported seeing something being loaded onto a sub like this one. What he saw wasn’t a dirty bomb. It was a little too big for that—and it fits the description of a warhead the Russians can’t seem to locate.”

CHAPTER THREE

Miguel Antonio Ruiz was not a happy man. His fingers toyed with the rim of his shot glass. He’d already downed two shots of the finest American whiskey, but he was not feeling in the least appeased.

“We are going to find that bitch,” he said to no one in particular. His lieutenant, Juan Ortega, stood by silently. He knew better than to talk. “And we are going to make her pay.”
 

Miguel snapped his fingers, and Juan obediently came over with the bottle. Miguel emptied the shot and Juan poured another.
 

Miguel was tired of the DEA getting all up in his shit. Sure, his submarine had been stolen by someone else—someone he’d let into his little jungle shipyard—but he knew where they’d gotten their information. The Americans had given it to them, most specifically one Special Agent McGill. That bitch had been a thorn in his side for the past couple of years.
 

He’d tried to buy her off—subtly, of course—but she wasn’t corruptible. It was like she had a specific grudge against all things Ruiz. Which, he supposed, she probably did.

It had taken him a long time to find out the truth about her because it had been buried so deep—too deep for even the DEA to find, it seemed.
 

She was Maya’s kid. Little Maya. He hadn’t thought of her in years. She’d betrayed him, betrayed the family, when she’d run away to America with her sailor man.

That hadn’t worked out, however, and she’d come crawling back. He picked up the shot glass and sniffed the liquor. His taste buds tingled with anticipation.

He hadn’t meant for her to die. He’d only meant for her to pay.
 

Miguel shrugged. Shit happened. It was not his fault.

Maya hadn’t needed to die, but her kid… that one was living on borrowed time. She was like a starving dog with a bone. She simply wouldn’t let go. She had a grudge because she knew the truth, and she would do anything she could to get to him. She was taunting him.

He picked up his phone and replayed the footage of her standing in his shipyard, wisps of smoke rising into the air around her, her long dark hair whipping in the breeze. Her mouth was a flat line and her eyes were grim.

He recognized that look. It was determination and a need for revenge all rolled into one. She wouldn’t let go of the bone. She would follow him to the ends of the earth to get what she wanted, which was the utter ruin of his business.
 

He couldn’t let that happen.

The door burst open and Sergio strode in. He threw his hands wide. “What the fuck, Miguel? They took our sub.”
 

“I know, brother.”

“We need to get it back. That shit cost a lot of money.”

“I’m working on it.”

Sergio threw himself down in a chair and flicked a hand at Juan. Juan retrieved another shot glass and poured a drink.

“How are you working on it?”
 

“Ivy McGill.”

Sergio blinked. “What does she have to do with this? We should be thanking our lucky saints
she
didn’t get the sub. If the Americans had taken it, we’d never see it again.”

Miguel snorted. “You’re blind, Sergio. Don’t you see? She didn’t trust her government to move fast enough, so she gave the information to the thieves. Now that they have it, she will move to confiscate it in open water.”

Sergio shook his head. “That makes no sense. She landed in the jungle with a team only hours after it was stolen. Why would she do that if she already knew it was gone?”

Miguel waved a hand as if shooing away a particularly bothersome bug. “I don’t know her thoughts, but I know she was behind it.”

Because she was too determined, too obsessed, not to be. He could feel it in his bones. And his bones never lied.

“Then what do you propose to do?”

Miguel studied the fresh liquid in his glass. He was feeling better now. Warm inside. It had taken time to get this far, but he had a plan.
 

“I know how to find her now. Soon she will be dealt with.”

* * *

Ivy strode into DEA headquarters and went straight for her boss’s office. Leslie Webb’s secretary didn’t even blink as Ivy walked past and entered the room.
 

Leslie looked up from her paperwork, one eyebrow arched, as Ivy closed the door behind her.
 

“Been expecting you, Special Agent McGill.”

Ivy sucked in a breath. She’d worked herself into a good lather on the way over here, but she needed to be cool and calm or she wouldn’t get anywhere. “Ma’am, respectfully, this is bullshit. I don’t want the military taking this away from us. We’ve worked too hard to bring down the Ruiz family and their network.”

“Ivy, you have to think about this.” Leslie sat back and gave her the once-over. “This is out of my hands. There are terrorists involved, and that trumps everything. The Ruizes will still be there when this is over. The military isn’t taking this away from us permanently. But they have to be involved now.”

Ivy scrubbed a hand down her jacket and sank into a chair across from Leslie. It infuriated her that the military had taken over, and yet she knew there was no changing it.

“All right, fine. But I want to be involved. At least send Ace and me in to advise them, or whatever we need to do. Don’t let us be cut out of this.”

One corner of Leslie’s mouth twitched. “Do you know why I’m sitting here and you’re over there?”

“Because you’ve been here longer and have more experience?”

“That’s right, Ivy. Not only that, but this isn’t my first rodeo.” She picked up a piece of paper and handed it over. “You’re in. Get your ass over to Maryland—and don’t let those special operator motherfuckers forget who found the damn sub in the first place, all right?”