Over the Edge (28 page)
Then, on Paoletti’s go, the team’s snipers would take those tangos out, shooting right through the glass, as the SEALs in Starrett’s team burst into the passenger compartment with a flash and a bang and took out the rest.
It would all be over in a matter of seconds.
Go, go, go!
Stan went through their door with Muldoon in choreographed precision, adrenaline surging, his focus sharp. A target. In his kill zone. He eliminated it, clean and clear.
And then, just that quickly, they were secure.
“Karmody!” Sam Starrett yelled.
“Passenger casualties.” WildCard Karmody consulted his computer. He looked up and grinned. “Zero.”
“Okay,” Starrett said grimly. “Let’s do it again.”
“What, perfect’s not good enough for you?” WildCard asked. “Jesus, Sam, we’ve been going practically nonstop since 0400.”
“What, doing it right once is good enough for you?” Starrett countered, his usually warm drawl clipped and cold. “And it’s Lieutenant, Chief. Next time you question my authority, at least make the effort to address me by rank.”
“Excuse me, Lieutenant Asshole,” WildCard shot back. “Maybe I didn’t go to officer’s school and take a class in how to be a hard-on 101, but it sure as hell seems to me that something needs to be said here besides fucking okay.”
Stan pushed his way forward. The look on Starrett’s face left him little doubt as to his lack of patience. They were all strung pretty tight here, Sam Starrett more than usual. On top of that, stress plus adrenaline plus a whole hell of a lot of testosterone made for some pretty aggressive and uncomfortable physical pressures.
WildCard put that thought exactly into words. “Man, you need to relax.” He laughed. “You need to get laid.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Stan ordered him. He turned to Starrett. “You want him off the team, Lieutenant?”
“Whoa,” WildCard said. “Senior Chief, I—”
Stan silenced him with a single dark look, then turned back to Sam Starrett. Come on, Lieutenant, you know what you have to do to be the kind of leader that Tom Paoletti was.
It was possible that every man there—and woman, because Alyssa Locke was standing there, too; she and her partner and the SAS guys were trying their best to be invisible—understood why Starrett had to get WildCard off his team.
Everyone but WildCard, that is.
“Yeah,” Starrett ground out. It wasn’t easy to kick your best friend off your team. But the man had called him an asshole in front of an audience. How could he do anything else? “Replace him with Knox.”
For the briefest split second, Stan was almost certain that WildCard was going to start to cry. But he didn’t. He also wisely swallowed whatever knee-jerk and probably profane exclamation had been on the tip of his tongue—the kind of expression a man could say to a friend, but not a commanding officer.
Instead he stood at attention, eyes straight ahead. “Lieutenant Starrett, sir,” he said in his best imitation of a real military man. “My sincerest apologies, sir. Request permission, sir, to stand in for Knox until he can be brought out here and up to speed.”
Starrett nodded curtly. “Fine. Let’s run this drill again.”
“How about we do it five more times, just the way we did it this last time, starting with the doors already popped, and then we head in for a rest.” Stan looked at Starrett, knowing that if he had his way, they’d run it fifty more times. “That okay with you, Lieutenant?”
Starrett nodded grudgingly. “Tonight we’ll do it again—in the dark.”
It would be easier across the board under the cover of darkness. If they could do this in broad daylight the way they’d just done, taking down the plane at night would be a walk in the park.
As Stan watched, Starrett moved farther away from the group, away from WildCard Karmody. Up until today he’d managed to be both leader and friend to this group of men, many of whom he’d gone through BUD/S training with as an enlisted man. But in truth, he’d left them—left WildCard—behind a long time ago, when he’d crossed over into officer territory.
And today reality had caught up with them both.
“Chief Karmody.” Starrett gestured with his head for WildCard to step aside, to speak to him privately. He lowered his voice, but Stan knew what he was saying. “You want to stay? Then you continue to address me only with respect.”
“Jesus, Sam—”
“That’s Jesus, Lieutenant Starrett,” Starrett corrected him coldly.
WildCard exhaled a disbelieving burst of air. “Even now? No one can fucking hear us—”
“You better put a sir on that, Chief, or I’ll have Knox out here so fast your head will spin.”
“No one can fucking hear us, sir.”
“I can hear you, Chief,” Starrett told him. “Let me give you a refresher course in the way this team works. I give orders, you follow them. This is not a democracy, there is no discussion unless I ask for one. You keep the wiseass comments to yourself or you’ll be off my team. And on report.”
“Well, that’s fucking lovely. Sir. Some fucking friend you are. Sir.”
“I am your friend,” Starrett said tightly. “But I’m also your commanding officer. If you can’t learn to separate the two and treat me with the same respect you give to Lieutenant Nilsson and Lieutenant Paoletti in a command situation, then I’m going to have to choose for you. And you better believe I’ll choose to be your CO.”
“Yes, sir,” WildCard said. “It’s more than obvious that you already have. Sir.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” Starrett growled. “Don’t make me sorry that I’m letting you stay.”
But it was Starrett who turned and walked away. Separating himself even farther from the rest of the team. Heading farther out into officer’s territory. All alone.
“Hey, Senior Chief!” Jenkins pulled Stan’s attention back to the rest of the team. “How about a little extra incentive for those five more times?”
Jenk gave him his best choirboy smile. Uh-oh. That was never good. The petty officer was trying, like he always did, to lighten the mood after an emotional storm. Look out. Someone was going to be in trouble. “How about we do each drill in the same number of seconds or less as we did this last time,” Jenk suggested, “and you get up during chow and sing karaoke?”
Stan. Stan was going to be in trouble. Sing karaoke. Goddamn Jenk. Jesus Christ.
But he looked at the tired and dusty faces of the men around him. With the exception of Starrett and WildCard, who both looked as if their best friend had just died, they all were starting to smile.
“Come on, Senior Chief,” Lopez said.
Stan nodded. “I get to pick the song.” What were the chances they’d have anything he knew and liked on tape? Slim to none. Still, if he left it to them, he’d be up there singing “Like a Virgin” or that teen pop song that Izzy liked so much.
Help.
“And if our timing’s not as tight?” Silverman asked when the whoops and laughter died back down.
Stan looked at them, one at a time. “Then I get to pick your songs.”
Instant energy. It was the kind of challenge this team couldn’t resist. Their timing would be as tight. No, it would be even tighter.
He was so screwed.
No one sat down in the observers’tent. No one but Helga, that is.
The pretty helicopter pilot—Helga was blanking on her name—stood leaning against one of the support poles, watching Stanley Wolchonok, her heart so painfully obviously on her sleeve. Oh, to be that young again . . .
The commander of SEAL Team Sixteen—his name was Lt. Tom Paoletti, Helga knew from consulting her memo pad—stood on the other side of the tent in that feet planted, legs widespread stance of the alpha male. It was an international phenomenon. Avi, her own husband, had stood the very same way as Tom.
Tom. Helga liked to think of the military men by which she was often surrounded by their first names. It was a great equalizer in a world filled with ranks and rates and big egos.
Tom stood talking to three men, all British. Helga flipped repeatedly through her pad, searching for who they might be.
No, they weren’t listed there. There was no mention of any involvement by Great Britain. She hadn’t met these men. Of that she was certain.
Almost certain.
Almost. Dammit.
Out by the plane, the SEALs prepared for another practice run of the hostage rescue. She could see Marte’s Stanley, smack in the middle of a group of strapping young men. They were laughing now.
He’d been right in the middle of things, too, a few minutes ago when they hadn’t been laughing. The observers’tent was too far away for them to have heard the conversation, but it had been pretty obvious there was a huge amount of tension out there.
And why shouldn’t there be? These few brave men were directly responsible for the lives of the 120 innocent people aboard the hijacked plane.
Helga had glanced at Tom Paoletti as the tension among the SEALs built, but he hadn’t moved an inch, hadn’t unplanted his big feet. He’d kept one eye on his men, sure, but it was obvious that he trusted them to solve whatever problems had come up between them.
Someone’s cell phone rang.
It was the tallest of the Englishmen. The too-good-looking one who fancied himself James Bond’s smarter, more handsome brother. Yes, she’d seen his type plenty of times before.
He answered his phone with a businesslike, “Pierce.” His name, no doubt. After that he just listened, and finally ended the call with an equally brief, “Right. I’m on my way.”
“Trouble?” Tom asked.
Mr. Pierce deposited his phone back into the inside pocket of his jacket. “I’m needed at the airport immediately. Might I talk you into a chopper ride? That way Hawking and Franz can stay here with the car, continue to observe.”
Tom took out his own cell phone, considered it for a half second, then stepped out from under the tent, repocketing the thing. “Yo, Jenk!” he shouted over to the SEALs.
Helga had to smile. He was an awful lot like her husband.
One of the SEALs, freckle faced and adorable, impossibly young-looking, came running. “Yes, sir?”
“Check with Starrett and the senior chief. See if it’s okay with them if Lieutenant Howe makes a quick trip to the airport. Rob Pierce needs to get there pronto.”
“Aye aye, sir!” The baby SEAL toddled off.
Teri Howe—that was her name—had stopped leaning and stood up. As Helga watched, she eyed Rob Pierce, surreptitiously checking him out.
Yes, indeed, young lady—definitely beware. Robbie was the sort who would manage to put his hands all over her as he got into the helicopter, unless she made a point to keep her distance.
Over by the plane, Jenk spoke earnestly, first to the cowboy—Helga checked her memo pad: Lt. Roger Starrett—and then to Marte’s Stanley.
Stanley turned, shielding his eyes against the glare, and gazed over toward the tent. He looked at them all—Teri, Helga, Tom, and Robbie and Co.—then spoke briefly to Jenk, who came running back.
“No problem, L.T.,” Jenk reported. “Senior just wanted to let you know that we were going to be finishing up within the next thirty minutes, so Lieutenant Howe should make an immediate return trip.” He grinned. “I think he’s in a hurry to get dinner over with. We’ve got a wager going, and if he loses—which he’s gonna—he’s going to have to get up and sing with the karaoke machine.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Tom told the younger man with a laugh. “Although I’m not sure whether to be there or to stay far away. Lieutenant Howe.” He gestured for her to approach. “Have you met Robert Pierce?”
“No, sir.”
Robbie held her hand just a little too long, gazed into her eyes just a little too deeply. When Helga glanced over, Stanley was watching. Intently.
Okay, maybe this attraction wasn’t so one-sided after all. In fact, if looks could kill, old Robbie would’ve been a smoldering pile of ash.
“Pierce is with the SIS,” Tom said to Teri. “He needs a lift to the airport, but then we’ll need you right back here for transport to the hotel.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“How long have you been flying choppers?” Helga heard Robbie ask Teri as they walked away. Come here often, babe?
Stanley watched them all the way to the helicopter. Watched them lift into the sky. He would’ve kept on watching, but the cowboy—she consulted her pad: Lt. Roger Starrett—called him.
Stanley glanced at Helga briefly, as if suddenly aware that she was watching him. Glanced at her again as he was walking back to the plane.
Ah, yes, she’d caught him doing something he didn’t want anyone to see. There was something going on between him and Teri Howe, of that she was now certain.
But was it love or was it merely sex?
Helga suspected the answer to that question was something Stanley didn’t even know himself.
It was a tough one, all right.
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