Halfway Between (14 page)

Once she felt that he was fully seated inside her, she cried out, “Someone move, please.”

“
With pleasure,” Drake said and then held her hips while he pulled out slowly running his cock against Joel's and creating a friction that almost sent her through the roof.

They established a rhythm, one pulling out while the other pushed in.  She felt the tingling again in her toes and fingers when her orgasm started to build. 
“Oh shit,” she cried and the men began to move in earnest.

They pumped in and out of her while she thrashed her head around trying to grasp the feelings she was having.  It was overwhelming.  Finally, Drake yelled to Joel that he was ready and she felt someone touch her swollen clit and she screamed her release.  As she exploded she felt them both shoot their come deep inside her.

She collapsed down on Drake while Joel fell to the side, sliding out of her now sensitive ass.  He rubbed her back as she tried to catch her breath.  Drake rolled a little so she was sandwiched in between the two of them.

She felt safe and loved for the first time in her life.  Harper sighed deeply and then let the heaviness of her limbs flow over the rest of her and pull her into a deep sleep.

The trio arrived downstairs to a flurry of activity.  There were items in the conference room being carefully laid out by several of the guards.  The table seated more than twenty and with the surface being covered, she was itching to push her way in and see what they had.  She thought she knew since Thane had yesterday announced their gear for the missions was being delivered.  She was so excited because she had always wanted a tactical vest with all the bells and whistles. 

Thane waved them in and she almost bounced with excitement.  Her men laughed behind her because they knew what she was so excited about.  She had been talking about it since Mason mentioned the delivery would be today. 

Like a woman with PMS, jonesing for her next chocolate fix, Harper pushed her way gently in until she could see the whole table.  Oh my God, it was like she had walked into heaven.  The table was bursting with different things, some she knew, some she didn
’t.  That was the fun of it, she was gonna get to play with some new toys.  She calculated where on the grounds she could go that wouldn’t get multiple calls to the police about gunfire.  She would find one because after all of the sparing she had been doing in the last week, as well and being taught new moves to use, she was more than ready to mix it up.

There was a difference between sexual tension, and these bastards pissed-her-off-and-have-to-die tension.  One she could handle because the anticipation was part of the process.  The other pissed her off even more when she couldn
’t release her frustration on the ones who deserved her wrath.

“
So on the far end of the table is your vest,” Thane said.  Jessie laughed and held it up. 

It was the traditional black tactical vest, a
Warhammer,
the best out there, but as she looked closer where the guys had their call signs embroidered in, hers said ‘Ramboina’, in pink.  She grinned and clapped her hands.  “Yay me, more pink, I think soon I am going to actually be able to walk into a store and pick a dress out.  It is a big step for me, boys, it's like being a grown up and shit,” she said.

The guys shook their heads and laughed. 
“So next to them are your weapons to choose from, make sure you grab the pants and tanks, as well as the boots.  We ordered your size according to Drake and Joel’s measurements,” Thane said with humor.

She turned to look at the guys who were flushed red. 
“How did you do that?”

“
You know the measurements are a little different, sweetheart,” Drake said and looked up to the ceiling.

“
What he's saying is, he didn’t want to squish the girls for fear you would get bruised, so when they asked—we used our hands to show them what your pretty uhhh…breasts measured,” Joel said and flushed more because he knew if he would have slipped and said something crass like 'knockers' she would have tortured him tonight. 
Damn this testosterone filled room.
They turned into idiots when they were all together.

Harper snorted,
“Good thing I don’t overflow, that could have been interesting.”  She laughed.

The guys joined in and she listened as they explained what to do.  She went to the beginning and pulled on her boots, and then excused herself to make sure her pants and tank matched.  They all held the same thing and she got several pairs of the exact same thing.  Black cargo pants with all the pockets, and a black tank top to wear under the heavy vest, they tended to sweat a lot when they wore them so they used lightweight material.  She loved them, and then she loved them even more when she saw the tiny little patches that said 
‘Ramboina’ on the shirts, and pants.  In the corner she could take pride in her boots if she wanted to read ‘Vicious Fairy in Training’.  She was also outfitted with sweats and workout clothes, all which had the same thing on them.

She felt the tears gather in her eyes because they had made her feel like part of a team for the first time in her life.  They understood her need for acceptance and had given it to her.  Even if it was a bit rude to paste on her sweatpants over her ass, her new call sign
‘TinkerBitch’.  She loved it, but would probably not wear in public unless she was in a bitchy mood.

Wiping her nose, which was running, she went back out into the main room.  Drake and Joel acknowledge her with a smoldering gaze, which let her know the new look made them hot, she shook her head and laughed, then proceeded to quietly slip in and out, picking her weapons with an excited glee that would have frightened most people.

The guys were piling their stash on their vest in separate places in the room, she watched them closely and made sure she had the basics like they did.  K-bar knives, she picked three.  Grenades, M4 rifle, flash bangs, M9 Beretta, M110 rifle, Milkor MK14, and magazines of bullets up the wazoo.  There were smaller little things like spikes, gloves, smaller knives, Taser, with extra plugs, and so forth, she gathered them all and proceeded to load them in her vest like she wanted them.  Her hair fell in her face and she ended up putting it in pigtail braids just to keep it up. 

She checked, rechecked, and made sure she didn
’t need more toys.  Finally satisfied, she couldn’t wait to try this shit out.  It was like a Redneck Christmas.  She turned and listened to the guys as they got their stuff and piled it up.  They were going to make sure they set it up later.  She bounced and said, “Hey, what do you think?” 

The men turned around and stared at her.  All of their mouths dropped open when they saw her.  A five foot nothing female, who was dressed in her tactical gear, including vest.  It was completely outfitted with all the goodies, Drake counted three knives at least on the vest, but he thought he saw another two on her waist.  She had her pink 9mm in the front chest holster, and then two others clipped on her side.  She carried a rifle in one hand and slung over the other shoulder was a
Stinger
, the man-portable equivalent to a surface-to-air missile launcher.  Hell, the thing was almost as tall as her. 
Holy fuck, she even had five missiles strapped around her waist
.  Her tank top showed off her muscular lean frame.  Basically the entire look threw him into a sexual overdrive, how fucking sexy she was with her braids and eager face.

He looked out of the corner of his eye at Joel who was grinning, obviously feeling the same way as he was. 
She was fucking amazing
, he thought and then nodded at her.  Harper winked back at him and bounced a little.

“
So?” she said.

“
Fuck, you look like Ramboina times ten.  That is kinda hot,” Jessie said and Drake growled at him.

“
Darlin',” Mason said.  “I swear if Arden didn’t have my heart I would be tapping that.” 

Joel laughed and punched him harder than needed in the arm. 

Harper just laughed.

“
TinkerBitch be damned.  More like ‘Bombshell’, we should change her name,” Gage said.

“
Hell no, it should be ‘Demented Pippi Longstocking'.  Who the fuck gave her a
Stinger
.  No one give her rounds for that?”  Thane laughed.

Harper narrowed her eyes.  Thane always had to rib her, she liked it, but he could never give her a compliment without being an ass first.  The guys blew it off, saying that he was socially handicapped.  Well handicapped or not, he was getting on her last nerve.  She grinned and pointed, the small missiles already strapped on waist.

“Shit, we are all going to jail for arming her,” Thane muttered.

“
Oh really?” Harper said with a dark tone.

“
Yeah, really, sure you can use all of the smaller weapons, but a Stinger will knock you on your pretty little ass quicker than you can say ‘cockblocking’.  Both are a pain in the ass,” Thane snorted.

The others stepped back and Harper glared and put a hand on her hip. 
“Fuck you, old man, at least I won't need an AARP card soon.”

Thane frowned. 
“Age means experience and, honey, I have so much more than you.  Maybe if you shoot another guy in the nuts, you will get the rep.”

“
I don’t have to, I can drop a guy without seriously killing him,” she said. 

Thane laughed,
“Right, we have been over this, for some men it will work, for others who are physically dominating, you shoot,” he said and narrowed his eyes.

“
I bet I can take you down in a second.  I would pants you, but that would be just humiliating for your guys.”  Harper laughed gleefully, knowing exactly what she was doing.

“
Whatever, I don’t want to hurt you, so let's agree to disagree shall we?” Thane said and went to turn back to the table.

In the flash of an eye, she pulled out the Taser and shot him in his left butt cheek.  All of the men laughed, swore, and even cheered her on as Thane dropped to the ground and fought the current running through him.  She gave it one last squeeze and then walked over to him. 
“Don’t fuck with ‘TinkerBitch’,” she growled and stared at him with disinterest until he could gasp for air.

“
Lunch anyone?” she said cheerfully and walked out of the room.

Mason came up to Joel and Drake,
“Sleep with one eye open, guys.  I would hate to have to explain to someone she killed you in your sleep because you left the toilet lid up.”

“We have a problem,” Alex called out down the hallway, making everyone pop their heads out and nod.  “Five, in here,” he called.

Harper had been in her little room looking over her computer reports that were sent.  Some made sense while others didn
’t make so much sense.  Things were connected in a loose fashion that she couldn’t actually put together fully, they would have to talk anyway.  She gathered her things and walked into the room where all of the guys were already gathered.

“
Here is what I have,” Alex said and looked at all of them with a dark look.  “Vince came in and told me a little, he asked his well-known friends in the military to push through approval for a mission here in San Diego.  They are going with domestic terrorism, which gives the Commander more room to give us help.  Until now, he has only been able to do things on the side with the permission of his direct supervisor, now we will be able to drawn in more resources.  And trust me—we are gonna need them.”

Thane stood and nodded to Alex who clicked on the screen. 
“Dario and the woman are on the run.  We heard chatter that his brother is looking for him.  They have increased activity, and we can only assume that at this point they are moving soon.  They need to get Dario taken care of.  We also know now that Dario and the woman were the informants.  Documents delivered on a secure server were easier to trace because they had the government firewall that we didn't look for.  So we need to find them first and foremost.  Melanie Shook, requested the job with this particular embassy because she had been digging into Sam’s death, and found a connection we didn’t.  On our last mission, Arden’s parents and Diego were in the Middle East and in the same country as us, staying in the same hotel together.  There are also reservations for people that may or may not be involved, if some of them are, this is going to rock the intelligence field since one of them is a whistleblower and the other is a high ranking official.  That being said, we have been given permission to get down and dirty with anyone who stands in our way.”

Joel said,
“I told you about the interrogation.  Didn’t get much other than the name Diego, and that this was far bigger than what we know.  Frank may have been the mole but he also knows of several more on the assholes payroll.  We are still searching records.  I am going to help weed them out.  Also, I was just informed when they went to start another round, they found Frank dead on the floor of his cell, with a Salamander shoved down his throat.”

“
Shit, okay, these are the missions we know are connected in one way or another.  They were all when we were just with each other, except for the suicide bomber, none of these were on the books per se.  Voodoo, your mission with Dag when you took out the guy who was going to bomb the embassies, the keys are yours.  Master Chief, yours and Raider's was the mission you dubbed ‘Pencildick’, the M16 was yours.  Ice, the mission where you and Emo took out the dude with a sniper rifle at his hideaway, yours was the bullet.  Drake, the building piece, was from the mission where you blew the dock and lost the money.  The blanket we know.  We haven’t found the common denominator, although each one of these missions went a little wonky, they were accomplished, all of the people received intelligence of our presence from the same address.  We are tracking all the messages coming to and from the address now, we may find more, but for right now, we can assume these are directed at us for some reason,” Thane continued.

“
How and why would anyone get this info?  Why us, why not Team THREE?  Why are we so special?  Okay, that word didn’t fit but you know what I mean,” Alex said.  “Those are the answers we need.”

“
Maybe Dario can fill us in.  Our top priority is to find and get Dario and Mel into our care.  I met Mel a few times, she is sweet, innocent, and a good person.  She doesn’t deserve this, none of us do,” Thane said.

Harper looked at Thane's eyes when he said Melanie
’s name, she was sure she saw a flash of some emotion, if it were the appropriate time and place she would have teased him.  But this wasn’t.

“
My contact has also begun to find certain classified emails being sent out.  The people in question have been elusive, one of them apparently in Cuba, and another in Switzerland.  The rest they are still looking for, but if we can get this tied down, we are sending people in to get them,” Harper said.  “Just like Alex said, there is a clear connection to a lot of cases, but the catalyst has yet to be clear.  Right now, we know who, what, where, and we are still looking for the why.  That will give us the nail in the coffin for our case.” 

Vince stood. 
“I think it may be time for me to connect to Amani again.  She is gonna be the key to a lot of this.  If she thinks she is still playing me, that I am clueless about her past—she will give herself away with her gloating.  The woman thinks she is untouchable, and to an extent she is, until we have the documents confirming what we know different.  Getting confirmed reports of these from countries is like a Lawyer trying to catch an alligator who is smarter than the average human is.  Impossible and useless.” 

“
And we are back at the gator references.”  Jessie laughed.

“
Hey, we could solve all this and call Jabo and the brothers.”  Mason laughed.

Harper had no clue who they were talking about yet, but anyone named Jabo had a story.  One she couldn
’t wait to her.  She also realized their joking was taking the edge off the tension in the room.  All of them felt responsible for this whole mess, and none of them should, they did their job.  She sat back and listened, throwing in an insult or two for good measure, it wasn’t until Thane stiffened that she sat up and took notice.  He was staring behind her to the wall.

“
Really?  We gotta do this now?” Thane yelled and the men all turned to where he was yelling and they all gasped. 

“
What?” she said curiously.

Drake groaned and put a hand over his face and said,
“Sweetheart, you remember when Joel was hallucinating and talking to his brother?”

“
Duh, shot a guy in the nuts remember?”  She laughed.

“
Well, he was actually speaking to his brother—his dead brother—my best friend—and I can talk to him too,” Drake said slowly and the guys looked at her.

“
Aww, honey, they are a manifestation of your guilt.  Everyone who has PTSD does this at one time or another,” she said and looked around the room in support, not sympathy, they would have never taken that.  “You know my dad was retired military.  He had severe PTSD, we never knew who was walking through the door.  Either it was my father, the military persona, or the broken man who talked to people who weren’t there.  He could be mean and nasty but there was always a reason.  I had to realize that at times he was still the same man just going through a real hard time.  I was a kid, and I didn’t understand it fully until I was in school.  There are meds though, we can ask for.  He took them and it seemed to help.”

“
Woman, we are not crazy, we all see them together.  They are leaving us when we are done finding this bastard.  It is like a ghost thing, Tulu, and Vince can see them as well, and help others to see them too.  They are real,” Thane bellowed.

“
Okay, I understand,” she said soothingly.

“
Vince,” Thane growled.

“
Well, I usually have to have Tulu with me, I have never done that on my own.  Maybe if we call her?” Vince said and stood.

Harper held up her hand. 
“Listen, I will concede until the mission is done to listen to your friends, afterward, if they don’t leave you all have to be honest and seek help.”

Drake rolled his eyes and looked up to the ceiling.  Tulu came on the speakerphone and said smartly. 
“I have been waiting for your dumbass to call.  I got a dead man who is insisting I pass on something.”

Harper frowned.  The woman sounded normal except for the whole Louisiana accent she had going on.  Harper had a hard time speaking Redneck Creole, they had an accent and a humor she loved, but didn
’t always get.

“
To who?” Vince asked.

“
Harper Bret.  Her father and mother are here, of course the woman is much smarter than him.  But he is being a pain in the ass,” Tulu said.

“
Right,” she snorted.  “Group hallucinations.  Very common in a group that have all lost people in the same incident.”

“
Whatever,” the older woman said on the phone.  “You sound like Jolie, you can speak geek to each other another time.  Here is the message, so I can finally go lay down and sleep.  Harper, he says he is sorry.”

“
Ah…see, I know you aren't talking to my father, his motto was ‘never apologize for your actions’.”  She laughed and smacked the table.

“
Would you let me finish, doubting dolly.  He said he is sorry he raised such a close-minded fool,” Tulu said.

“
Figures,” Harper said.

“
And he wants you to know he was not crazy, his buddies were trying to tell him something…move on…  He knows you won't believe this so he says: Do you remember the last time he said ‘I love you?’  You were fifteen going to the prom, and he said you looked stunning as well.  He left the next day on his last mission.  He wants to replace that memory by telling you now how much he loved you and your mother, without you he would have been a lonely, crazy fool,” Tulu said.

“
Well shit,” Harper said, feeling the tears gather.  “Did we have to go there?” 

“
I am just the vessel, I don’t give the message.  Although I will say that I did tone it down a little, he actually said, ‘fucking close-minded fool’.  But there you go.  Vince, call me later, I need a damn nap,” Tulu said and hung up.

She looked up, looked around the room, and nodded. 
“Okay, carry on.”

Thane shook his head. 
“Well that took the thunder out of my sails.  I can see them all now, what does that mean?”

“
So can I,” Drake said and the others nodded in agreement.

“
Good,” Sam said.  “Hug it out later, you can see us all because the mission is almost over.  We will stand by you all for this last part.  It is going to be hard, and no one is sure if any innocents will be lost.”

“
Great, okay, deal with that later,” Thane said.  “Get your stuff and get ready, they have four locations in a three block radius where Diego has been seen.  All hotels, he has to have his men stashed there.  We are going to strike the first blow, while Vince is going to the base and make a phone call.  We want them to be listening and recording directly.”