Whiskey Tribute: A Trident Security Series Novella - Book 5.5 (5 page)

Scanning the room, she saw Curt talking to Marco while
drinking another soda. She knew he was staying sober so he could help her, but
she was worried about him. He hadn’t broken down yet, trying to be strong for
her, and she knew it was only a matter of time before his grief hit him square
in the chest. She wanted that to happen while he had his teammates around to
watch his back.

Spotting Ian and Devon chatting a few feet away from her, she
stepped over to them. Ian lifted his arm around her shoulder and pulled her
into his side. Placing a brotherly kiss on her forehead, he asked, “How are you
doing, Dana?”

“As good as I can be at the moment, but I need you to do me a
favor.”

“Name it.”

She sighed. “I’m going to be heading home in a bit with my
kids and the grandparents. Jenn is coming, too, for a little while. Can you
make sure Curt stays here with you, please?” Devon raised an eyebrow at her,
but she continued before he could ask any questions. “He needs you guys right
now. He’s been a rock for me since he got here, but I can tell he’s holding
back. Get him drunk and watch his six…do what you guys do for each other at times
like this. You can drop him off later—he’s been crashing on the couch. Even
though they’re coming back to the house for a while, my mom and in-laws have
been staying at the bed-and-breakfast in town, and the kids will sleep like
rocks tonight. Just call my cell phone when you’re on your way and I’ll open
the door.”

“Are you sure?” Ian asked. “We can throw him in a bed at the
hotel. No big deal.”

Shaking her head, she glanced over at the man in question.
“No. It’s okay. Bring him to the house. He’s staying the rest of the week to
help me with all the paperwork with the V.A. and other stuff. You can pick Jenn
up, then, and bring her back to the hotel.”

“We’ll take good care of him. I promise. And if you need
anything, you have most of our numbers, right?”

“I do.” She swallowed a sob that wanted to burst forth.
“Thanks…for everything. I…I couldn’t have gotten through this without all of
you here.”

Ian pulled her into a full hug, wrapping both arms around
her. “That’s what we’re here for, sweetheart. Eric was a brother and we take
care of our own.”

“I know you do.”

It had been a long day, and it was far from over. Curt
hoisted five-year-old Amanda up into his arms when she came over to him while
he was talking to Polo. As she rested her head on his shoulder, he told his
friend about Eric’s last phone call. “It sucks. I missed his freaking call and
by the time I got the voice mail, it was too late. His cell had been in his
pocket and was smashed. That’s why we couldn’t ping it. The weird thing is, he
sounded worried about something.”

Marco took a swig of his beer. “What’d he say?”

“Just that he really needed to talk to me and to call back as
soon as I could. Dana doesn’t know what it was about. I don’t know…maybe I’m
trying to figure out why it happened. It was probably some effing drunk…”

“Uncle Curtsy? What does effwing mean?”

Rolling his eyes as Marco chuckled, Curt gave Amanda a
squeeze before setting her on her feet once more. “Nothing, sweetie. I think
Jenn is looking for you over there.” He pointed to where the young woman was
gathering the children’s jackets and Amanda’s coloring book. “Why don’t you go
help her, okay?”

“Okay.”

He watched as she skipped away, then spotted Dana who was
making her way over to him. When she reached him, he put his arm around her.
“Everyone is starting to head out. Do you want to go to? I’ll start saying my
goodbyes real quick and then drive you home.”

Placing her hands on his broad chest, she shook her head.
“No. You stay here with the boys.” He opened his mouth to argue with her, but
she cut him off with a few taps to the medals over his heart. “I know you all
have another toast to do. Jenn is coming back with me along with my mom and
Eric’s parents. I asked Ian to drive you back later and then he could pick up Jenn.
I’ll be fine.”

He let out a heavy breath and realized he was surrounded by
the Trident Security group and a few others in full uniform. Not only were his
former teammates here for Dana…and Eric…they were here for him too. Ian nodded
at him. “She’s right. We have another toast to do, and that one is all yours,
my friend. Let’s get drunk and rowdy and have some laughs in Wabbit’s honor. He
wouldn’t expect anything less from us, and you know it. Since Dev doesn’t
drink, he’s going to make sure everyone gets home safe later.”

Swallowing the lump in his throat, his gaze returned to Dana.
“I still have the keys to Eric’s truck in my pocket and the house key is on it,
so lock up if we’re not back by the time everyone goes to bed. Tell Jenn to
crash on the couch, if she wants until we get there.”

“Got it covered, Elmer.” He smiled because it was rare she
used his call sign. “I’ll leave a few bottles of water and some Tylenol on the
coffee table. Take them before you pass out.”

That was Dana. Always making sure everyone else was taken
care of…especially him. He hoped someday soon he found a woman who was just
like her, because when he did, he’d make that woman his wife.

Fifteen minutes later, the pub owner turned on the lights to
a small party room in the back of the restaurant for the SEALs to continue the
celebration of their buddy’s life. They would be out of the way, and view, of
the dinner crowd which would start filing in soon. Ian had arranged for the
daytime bartender to stay on. A little corner bar in the room was stocked with
a variety of different beers on ice and about a two dozen bottles of Jameson’s.
They would need at least that much for the fifty or so retired and active SEALs
present. A few wall mounted TVs were turned on to several sports games with the
volumes off. Music was piped in from the main bar area, but it was low enough
to just be background noise.

As the shots of whiskey were being passed around once more,
Curt focused on what he was going to say for the toast. The first one had been
devoid of vulgarities, as clean as an admiral’s dress whites, for the sake of
the family and children. However, this one was for the men who had trained,
sweat, and fought side by side with their fallen brother—cursing wasn’t only
expected, it was a requirement.

Once everyone had their whiskey, they turned to face Eric
Prichard’s best friend. All backs in the room were ram-rod straight and each
set of shoulders squared in honor of every drop of blood shed. Curt had to
clear his throat several times. There was a reason, aside from the cursing, why
this toast was done in private—tears were sure to flow and men like them
preferred not to cry in public.

Taking a deep breath, Curt lifted his glass high above his
head. His gaze was on the ceiling as he spoke to Eric in the great beyond.
“Wabbit, you son of a bitch. We walked through hell together, and blew fucking
smoke up the devil’s ass. We rocked a lot of women’s worlds and a lot of their
beds, too. Big tits, small tits, we squeezed them all, my friend. But then you
met your beautiful wife and, not long after, your kids came along. Your
brothers will lay down their fucking lives for your family, so rest assured we
still have your six. Hang tight, brother Wabbit, until we meet again. Then we’ll
all let fucking loose and blow smoke up a few angels’ skirts.
Hoo-yah
!”

“
Hoo-yah
!”

* * *

Present

“They’re here!” Justin shouted as the three packed SUVs
pulled into the drive. He ran from where he and the other boys had been waiting
in a section of the backyard, where they could see the vehicles come down the
road, to the front of the house. His five other friends, plus the birthday boy,
Connor, were hot on his heels. While the kid’s limp was noticeable, he had
spunk and tried not to let it limit him.

Curt did a final scan of the makeshift training area in and
around the barn, then slapped Ryan on the shoulder. “Thanks for the help. You
did a great job.”

The boy grinned with pride at him. “It was fun. I can’t wait
to shoot some tangos.”

They had spent most of yesterday and the entire morning
setting up bales of hay, which Curt had arranged to be delivered, and other
objects to make places to hide behind and use as cover while searching for the
bad guy. Pete Archer and Steve Romanelli had flown in early yesterday morning
to help, since the Trident team hadn’t been able to take off from Tampa before
seven p.m. last night, due to a few things that couldn’t be rescheduled. They
had all gone straight to the hotel when they arrived and Curt had met them there
for a quick beer.

The other men and he wandered out to the front yard. The
Trident team had brought plenty of toys for the day of SEAL games. Obviously,
none of the weapons were real, but they were incredible simulation training
tools. It would be a cross between high-tech laser tag and real life war games.

Ian climbed out of the driver’s seat of the first vehicle as
everyone else scrambled out. His fiancée, Angie, stepped forward and gave Curt
a hello kiss on the cheek. Glancing around, he greeted everyone else who had
come—Devon and his wife, Kristen, whose baby bump had started to show. Boomer
and his girlfriend, Kat. Brody was solo this time. Ian and Devon’s cousin Mitch
was there, along with Charlotte Roth, a.k.a. Mistress China from the BDSM club
the cousins owned. While not involved in the security business, the two were
attending the wedding as well, and Curt had invited them to the party with
everyone else.

Marco was the last one Curt spotted and he had his arm around
his woman, Harper. Yeah, that had been a shock. The day after they’d had that
conversation back in January when Marco had repeated his old mantra about never
having a wife and kids, the guy’s life had flipped upside down. He’d found out
he was the father of Harper’s little girl, who had been born at the end of last
summer. Because of some whack job’s interference, Marco hadn’t known about his
daughter, and Harper had been led to believe he wanted nothing to do with
either of them. Curt was glad to see everything had worked out between them
because he couldn’t remember ever seeing Polo so happy. From what Curt had been
told last night, little Mara was home being babysat by Harper’s mother and Jenn
Mullins, who was also dog sitting Parker and Shelby’s dog, Spanky. The
twenty-year-old had a big exam coming up during the week in one of her classes
at University of Tampa, and she wouldn’t have been able to enter the casinos
anyway, so she’d opted to stay home.

After the men greeted the children, who were in awe of being
surrounded by U.S. Navy SEALS, they unloaded all the gear and carried it to the
backyard. The women had zeroed in on Dana since this was the first time they were
meeting her in person. Curt hadn’t realized how close they’d all gotten to her
via Facebook. Bringing them to where picnic tables had been set up just off the
back porch, she introduced them to several of her friends who’d come to help
with the party.

As Curt grabbed one of the last duffel bags, another SUV
pulled in. This one had a light bar on the roof and ‘Caution—Police K9’ on the
rear windows. Both front doors opened and Phil Olsen hopped out of the
passenger seat. The driver was the Sheriff Department’s K9 handler, Sean
Kilduff, who had volunteered to bring his dog, Kilo, and give the kids a show
of what his partner could do. Phil would be donning the protective attack suit
for the demonstration.

Once everything was set up, Ian handed out Team Four T-shirts
and baseball caps to all the kids, including little Amanda and her friend
Nellie. The birthday boy, Connor, was grinning ear-to-ear as he put them on. Then
the men took some of the grease paint they’d brought, and smeared it on the
youngsters’ faces, with their parents’ permission of course. Might as well go
all out and make the kids feel like they were really on a secret mission.

Brody was off to the side helping Boomer get into his high-tech
gear to be the bad guy. The jumpsuit and ski mask he was putting on would
register any hits from the laser guns. Each weapon showed up in a different
color, so they could tell who hit where. Back at the Trident compound, they had
a hollowed out building with movable interior walls to change the setup. The walls,
ceiling, and floors were coated with special black paint which would show the
heat from the laser shots for about fifteen minutes until fading away. It was
all really cool, and Curt loved joining the team for some training runs every
now and then.

Grabbing Amanda, and then Nellie, under the arms, he hoisted
them up on the bed of Eric’s pickup truck, which they’d used to bring all the
bales of hay into the backyard. “All right, gang! Listen up!” He made sure he
had all the kids’ attention. There were eleven in total—the two girls, Ryan,
Taylor, Justin, Connor, and the five other boys. Curt pointed at Ian dressed in
his black cargo pants, boots, and a grey T-shirt. “That man right there? He’s
your commander. You can call him Lieutenant, Boss-man, or sir. You will listen
to everything he says and you will follow his orders. Give him a big ‘yes,
sir’.”

Grinning, the kids all shouted, “Yes, sir!”

Ian clapped his hands together, then waved everyone into a
huddle which included the back of the pickup so the girls didn’t have to get
down. “All right, team. First, we’re going to talk safety. It’s extremely
important in combat. Number one—you always point the muzzle of your gun at the
ground until you’re given the go order.”

“How come?” one of the boys asked. Curt couldn’t remember his
name at the moment. “You said they don’t have bullets in them.”

“That’s right.” Ian pointed at the youngster. “Good question.
We train that way because sometimes we use real weapons and sometimes we use
the fake ones. You don’t ever want to mistake one for the other in the heat of
the moment, so you treat every gun as if it’s the real thing. You never aim a
gun, fake or real, at anyone you don’t intend to shoot. Got it?”

The boy nodded. “Yup.”

“Okay. Next. Our bad guy, or tango, over there…” He tilted
his head toward Boomer. “…is going to hide somewhere in the barn. If it’s not
your turn, no giving away the tango’s location if you saw where he went. That’s
poor sportsmanship. Whoever’s turn it is, you’re going to team up with Elmer here.
He’ll walk right behind you and point out where you need to go. When you see
your target, aim and shoot. Got it?”

The kids shouted in unison, “Got it!”

Taylor raised his hand. “Lieutenant Ian, who goes first?”

Taking the ball cap Urkel handed him, Ian showed them it was
filled with folded pieces of paper. “Since it’s Connor’s birthday, he gets to
go first. Everyone else will go in the order their names are pulled. Fair
enough?” They agreed. “Okay. Hand signals.” He held his fist at shoulder
height. “This means stop and stay where you are. No talking until you’re given
the all clear. I’ll point where I want you to go. We’ll keep it simple with
those two signals. Elmer, get Connor ready. The rest of you can watch from the
door on the other side of the barn or up in the loft, so you’re out of the way,
but can still see everything. And remember…no giving away the tango’s
location.”

While the other kids scrambled to get a good observation
spot, Curt gave Connor a crash course on how the gun worked. It was pretty
simple—there was a safety switch, sights, and a trigger. If it wasn’t for the
fact it was painted red for safety reasons, the assault rifle looked and felt
like the real thing. Because the boy’s arms weren’t long enough for the stock
to rest against his shoulder, Curt instructed him how to hold it, point, and
shoot.

When everyone was set, a four-man team consisting of Connor,
Ian, Urkel, and Brody closed in on the target building, using trees and the
bales of hay for protection as they leap-frogged forward. Curt coached the boy
on how to cover his teammates when they were moving out in the open. The team
waited patiently as Connor limped from spot to spot. Soon they reached the
large opened barn door with Connor, Curt, and Urkel on one side of the door
frame and Ian and Brody on the other side. Ian signaled Egghead to enter and
provide cover for the others. He then pointed with his finger for the birthday
boy to enter and search for the tango.