Running Blind (14 page)

23

“So we're on the same page about last night, right?”

Coop scowled at Rhonda as he drove toward the Air Force base the next morning. “Right. Same page.
No problemo
.”

At least, there shouldn't be. But once again, this woman had messed with his head to the point where he wasn't exactly sure what was up, down, good, bad, or verging on insanity.

He'd awakened in her room bright and early, as erect as the Washington Monument. Problem was, she wasn't lying naked beside him to appreciate his very impressive good-morning salute.

But water had been running in the shower, and he'd totally been up for that.

So he'd rolled out of bed and ambled over to the bathroom. The door was locked.
What the—
He gave it a rap. “Need your back washed?”

Seconds later, she'd turned the shower off.

A few seconds after that, the door had opened. She was wrapped in a towel, with another one around her hair.

She'd just looked at him. “You should go back to your room. We need to get ready to head out to the air base.”

He'd glanced at the bedside alarm clock, then planted a hand on the top of the door frame, blocking the doorway. “We've got plenty of time for what I have in mind.”

Then he'd reached for her—and come up with a handful of empty towel.

She'd snatched it away from him, ducked under his arm, and quickly wrapped herself up again in a clear “hands off” signal.

“Um . . . did I miss a memo or something?” he'd asked, watching her rummage around in her luggage.

Her shoulders had stiffened. She'd straightened slowly, then turned to him, a pair of pink lace panties and matching bra clutched in her hand, and damn, if his mouth didn't go dry.

“Look. Cooper—”

He'd cut her off with a hand in the air. “Don't you think maybe it would make more sense if you called me Jamie now?”

“Cooper,” she'd begun again after a deliberate hesitation, “I never intended for you to stay the night.”

Ahh. Then he'd gotten it. She was dealing with a bad case of morning-after regrets. In deference to her discomfort, he'd found his jeans on the floor and tugged them on. Zipping them closed, however, had been out of the question.

“Sorry about that. I guess I fell asleep.”

“Yeah. Well, it happens. Let's just move on.”

“Move on?”

“That was the deal, right?”

Another light bulb had finally flickered on as he mined the rubble from the explosion the Bombshell had set off last night. He'd made promises.

We keep this real . . . It's just about tonight . . . Just about sex . . . No hanging on or looking back when it's over.

Yeah, he'd agreed to all that. In the midst of getting naked for wild monkey sex, he'd have agreed to anything. He'd even been impressed that she wasn't clingy.

But this morning, being the one invited to leave, he wasn't so sure he liked those damn rules. He'd sure as hell had more than one night in mind when he'd made that promise. He'd figured they could at least continue until the end of this assignment, before they went back to the “real” world.

“Isn't this our turn?” she asked now.

Yeah, it was, and he'd been so caught up in replaying the morning conversation that he'd almost missed it.

He flicked on the turn signal and exited toward the air base, then glanced at her again. She was reviewing notes on her tablet, cucumber-cool. The earth had moved several times last night, and she'd filed it away as a one-night stand.

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Hokay. That's what she wanted? That's what she was going to get.

“So what have you got in store for the poor, unknowing masses with your testing today?” he asked as they approached the security gate.

She looked up from her tablet and smiled. “They're going to be screaming for their mommies by the time I'm through with them.”

He almost felt sorry for them.

•    •    •

At lunch, Coop grabbed a sandwich and a soda from the base commissary, headed outside, and found a spot directly in the sun and sheltered from the wind. Then he made a call that he'd put off too long.

“Hi, Mom. It's Jamie.”

“Jamie who?” Rossella Cooper asked in a pouty voice. “I had a son by that name. But he must be dead, because he has not called his mother in months.”

“I love you, too,” Coop said with a grin as he envisioned his mother's fiery black eyes snapping with injured rage while her voice gave away her pleasure at hearing from him. “And it hasn't been months. It's been one month. Maybe a little less.”

“You may be able to split hairs with your gullible women, but you can't mollify your mother as easily.”

Thirty-five years ago, his Colombian-born mother had been a soap opera star in her native country. Lawrence Cooper, an American businessman, had met her at a cast party while there on a business trip. They'd fallen in love—a storybook love at first sight—and gotten married. It had taken some convincing on his dad's part, or so his mother said, but she'd given up her career and followed him back to San Diego, where Lawrence's business was based.

She may have given up her career to marry Coop's dad and then raise Coop, but she'd never lost her flair for theatrics. And while she hadn't been a “stage mom,” she'd tried her best to establish a career for him in TV or film. If Coop's heart had been in it, maybe he might have had some success. Modeling gigs were the most he'd ever gotten, but they'd been lucrative and plentiful and had kept him in cars and women until he'd enlisted when he was twenty-one.

“I'm sorry,” he said, giving his mother her due. Ever since he'd come back from Australia, where he'd distanced himself from even his family for many years, he'd tried not to give her reason to worry that he'd dropped out again. “I should have called before now. So how are you and Dad doing?”

“We're fine. I'm busy volunteering at the local theater company. Your father should retire, but that business . . . Don't get me started.”

Coop grinned again. This was a long-running disagreement between his parents. They were still very much in love, but she wanted to travel more, and his dad still felt the need to micromanage his exotic-wood import business.

“Where are you, Jamie?”

“You know I can't tell you that.”

“Can you at least tell me if you're in danger?”

“No danger, Mom. Pretty tame assignment.”

She gave up the pretense of anger and started quizzing him as only a mother could. Was he eating right? Did he get enough sleep? Was there a woman in his life?

“Yes, yes, and no.” An image of Rhonda, blond hair falling across her face, blue eyes heavy-lidded with desire, flashed through his mind.

“No woman?” she asked again.

He swallowed hard. “No. No woman.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire.

“That's because you don't look for the nice girls. You always want the bad, pretty ones.”

“Hey.” He laughed, feeling as amused as he did defensive. “What if Dad had looked for a nice girl? What if he hadn't gone for the pretty one?”

She had no comeback for that.

He chuckled, then checked his watch. “Look, Mom. I've got to go. Duty calls and all that. I just wanted to check in.”

“Promise me again that you're not in danger.”

“I promise.”

“And call your father,” she added. “He also worries.”

“I'll call him. Love you, Mom. Take care of yourself, okay?”

“I love you. Stay safe.”

He thought about his parents and their relationship on and off the rest of the afternoon. By the time he wrapped up, he was feeling a little melancholy. And maybe a little cheated. He'd never wanted to be tied down in a long-term relationship. Couldn't see the value of it.

And yet—how much more could a man want out of life than what his father had with his mother? Or what Mike had with Eva . . .

24

By the time Coop had finished putting security through their paces later that day, the wind had picked up and the temperature had dropped by fifteen degrees. It was nippy, to say the least, and heading for sundown, when it would get even colder.

Rhonda was waiting for him beside the rental Jeep when he walked across the parking lot a little after 6:00 p.m., their agreed-upon meet time.

“Sorry.” He quickly unlocked the vehicle. “Hope you haven't been waiting long.”

“Just got here.” The fact that she'd flipped the collar of her coat up around her ears and wrapped it tightly around her said she lied. Her nose was red with cold, and she didn't waste a second scrambling into the passenger seat.

“Should have some heat soon.” He shifted into gear and started across the lot to the exit point.

She buried her nose deeper into her coat and shivered, and he found himself wishing he could pull over, drag her into his arms, and kiss her until her internal furnace cranked up enough to make them both hot.

But Bombshell Burns had made it very clear this morning that she would not appreciate that kind of gesture.

“I'm ready to wrap things up here,” he said. “How about you?”

“Yeah. Me, too. I'm satisfied this crew is top-notch. I've got a few more tests I could run if I had to, but it would be redundant. They're in great shape.”

“Except for a few minor tweaks that they've already put in place, same goes for the physical security. So are we agreed that we can move on to Utah in the morning?” That was the last stop of this trip.

“Fine by me.”

Several minutes of silence passed as they headed toward the hotel.

And another night.

Which would
not
be a repeat of last night, because that's the way she wanted it.

Feeling restless and a bit out of sorts, he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

“You do that a lot,” she said.

He glanced her way. “I do what a lot?”

“Tap your fingers on the wheel. Like you've got a song playing in your head.”

“Just eager to get this next assessment in the bag and head back to Langley.”

Where they hadn't come up with anything solid on the case. Where, according to the phone call from Mike, Coop was due for extra grunt duty for withholding the information about the playing cards and designer bullets.

He didn't care. He knew Mike would cool off.

What he cared about was nailing the bastard who'd shot Eva.

She could have died. Her life over, just like that. Sudden death wasn't new to him; men had died beside him in battle. He'd had five very near misses himself and probably more that he didn't know about.

Which was something he generally worked hard not to think about. The uncertainty of life. The inevitability of death. It made him think about things he wished he'd done but had never gotten around to.

He glanced at Rhonda and, for some inexplicable reason, decided there was
one
thing he was going to do right now.

“The One-Eyed Jacks was a joint task force.”

She turned her head toward him, surprise brightening her eyes.

“As you already figured out, we got our name because every guy in the unit carried a jack of hearts or a jack of spades, one-eyed jacks. The cards were symbols of solidarity, I guess. That, and we spent a lot of time playing cards between ops.

“Anyway, our unit was an experiment set up by the Joint Special Operations Command. They recruited us from three Spec Ops branches: Rangers, Special Forces, and Delta Force from the Army, Navy SEALs, and Force Recon Marines.”

“You were a Marine? Force Recon?” she asked hesitantly.

If she knew about Force Recon, she knew what he'd gone through to make the grade. Everyone heard about the grueling regimen that Navy SEALs went through to make it. Force Recon was just as horrific.

“Yeah. I was. Anyway, Mike, Taggart, a select handful of other good men, and I were put together as a unit and shipped off to Afghanistan.”

“Isn't that unusual? I know they perform joint missions, but an actual mixed unit?”

“It's unusual, but it had been done once before. Look up Captain Nathan Louis Black sometime.”

He saw the moment it registered. “You mean Nate? Our Nate?”

“He was the CO of the first experimental unit ever, during and after Desert Storm. Jones, Green, Reed, and several more—all of the Black team were part of Task Force Mercy.”

“Like you, Mike, and Taggart were the One-Eyed Jacks.”

He still didn't know why he was telling her this. He'd never told any other woman. But he liked knowing that she was interested. And he liked knowing that someone other than the team and his parents knew about what happened. About what they'd all gone through.

“We're what's left of the One-Eyed Jacks.”

The rest spilled out like a lava flow from a volcano.

“We'd been kicking ass all over Kandahar Province, messing with the Taliban's supply routes, destroying their ammo dumps, generally playing havoc with their entire operation.” He paused as he thought back to that one brutal and deadly night.

“What happened?” She was hesitant; he could see it in her eyes. She wanted to know, and yet she didn't.

“Operation Slam Dunk happened. The brass sent us out to find out if the Taliban was still giving a local village trouble. A recon mission, nothing more. But it didn't quite go down like that.

“It was night. Mike had set the Black Hawk down like a baby in a cradle in a wide spot in the mountains. Webber—” He stopped and swallowed, thinking of his dead teammate. “Webber flew copilot. Taggart was on the mini-gun, ready to fire if we had unexpected visitors. I was running commo. The rest of the team had offloaded as soon as Mike set the bird down, heading for the village that was just over a ridge.

“We were getting worried, because they'd been gone too long. They finally radioed in to report that Taliban fighters were randomly killing the villagers, and they requested permission to engage. I got hold of our command post, and Mike relayed the urgency of the situation. They denied us permission to intervene.”

“What . . . why?” The bewilderment in her tone was eclipsed only by outrage.

“The answer to that comes later. Mike tried to call the guys back to the chopper, but he couldn't raise them. We knew then that they were in trouble. Mike and Webber had to stay with the bird, so Taggart and I went out to scout.”

He stopped again, his throat suddenly thick. “The Taliban had them. And we were way outnumbered. We hightailed it back to the bird, relayed the info to Mike, and he radioed command, again requesting permission to engage. They told him to stand down and wait for airship support.”

“So you waited?”

“Hell, no. Mike lifted off, and we headed for the village. And all we found were bodies. All of our guys dead, along with the villagers.”

He had a vague recollection of Taggart screaming at the top of his lungs, leaning on the mini-gun, and scattering Taliban in every direction.

“I don't remember a lot after that. We took a direct hit and went down. Webber was dead on impact. I was unconscious. Taggart had a broken leg. Mike had a dislocated shoulder and some pretty bad burns. Somehow, he managed to drag us both out of the bird and behind cover before the chopper exploded. Next thing I remember, I was in a military hospital. And I'd been charged with negligence in the line of duty, willfully disobeying orders, dereliction of duty, and being responsible for the deaths of my team members and innocent civilians.”

“How could they
do
that to you?”

“Not just me. Mike and Taggart, too. Our court-martial was scheduled. Then, suddenly, it wasn't. Mike had cut a deal. We ended up with less than honorable discharges, and they let us go.”

“But you didn't do anything wrong! Why would Mike settle for that? Why not fight it in court?”

“That was my question. Taggart's, too. It was tough to swallow, but it looked like Mike had betrayed us. Cut himself a deal and dragged us down in the dirt with him. At least, that's what we thought at the time.”

“What was his explanation?”

“He didn't stick around long enough to give us one. We wouldn't have listened anyway.
Hate
isn't a strong enough word for what I felt for him back then. Anyway, Mike dropped off the grid, ended up down in Peru, drinking his way through several years before he finally got sober. I didn't know that until later, because I dropped out, too. I found out later that Taggart had signed up with the first military contractor who would take him and ended up back in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban again.”

“Where did you go?”

“I couldn't face my family. I wasn't guilty of anything, but I felt like I was. I didn't want to hear their sympathy or see the questions in their eyes that they were afraid to ask. So I split for Australia. Did a lot of surfing, some modeling, and generally tuned out. Then Eva Salinas came along.”

“Eva? How does she possibly tie in?”

He dragged a hand through his hair. “It's complicated. Her husband was killed in Operation Slam Dunk.”

“Oh. My God.”

“She'd been told he'd died in a training accident. Then, eight years later, the file on OSD mysteriously found its way into her hands. It laid the blame squarely on Mike's shoulders, and she made it her mission to find him and make him own up to what he'd done.”

“Only he hadn't done anything wrong.”

“That's what she finally figured out. She and Mike also figured out that our commanding officer in Afghanistan, a man we all idolized, had set us up. He had a lucrative side business with the Taliban, cashing in on the opium trade. We'd been too effective rooting them out, and Brewster—our CO—needed to put us out of commission.”

“So you weren't expected to come back from the mission that night?”

Pure rage burned in his belly. “None of us was supposed to walk away alive. The three of us ended up as pesky loose ends. He hadn't counted on us living, just like he hadn't counted on Mike making a deal that broke our spirits but saved our lives.”

“So Mike didn't sell you out. He saved you.”

“Yeah. Too bad it took eight years to get it sorted out and to take down the man who set us up to die.”