A Blued Steel Wolfe (13 page)

“Understood, sir,” Shepard replied. “When I find them and you bring the team to go in and take then down, I’m going in too.”

“In that case we’d better get to work,” Justin replied with a nod. “Go see Ray and he can brief you on possible sites for the Bratva base when he runs down the Intel.”

“Roger that,” Deck replied as he left the room. Trina accompanied him to the command center, and they chatted like old friends as they walked.

“Gonzo, I’m going to need you here,” Justin said to his former platoon sergeant. “We need a good NCO to help coordinate our security teams, and you’re one of the best who ever lived.”

“Just like old times, sir?” Gonzo replied with a genuine smile.

“I hope not. We lost too many men last time. We need to keep our casualties down this time around,” Justin said gravely as he shook his head.

“Yeah I agree, sir,” said Gonzo soberly.

Just then, there came a knock on the doorjamb. Justin looked up to see Cammie there. She smiled sheepishly as she looked back and forth between her Man and Gonzo.

“Gonzo, this is Camille Jenkins,” Justin said by way of introduction. “Cammie, this is Sergeant First Class (retired) Rick Gonzales, my old platoon sergeant.”

“It’s good to meet you, Cammie,” Gonzo said. “Call me Gonzo, though. Everyone does. Juan was a good man.”

“Yes he was, and thanks,” Cammie said with a smile. Then she looked at Justin. “I’m sorry, but I can’t leave baby. I can’t go while you’re here. Besides, Jared is going to need me to keep the paperwork up. Besides, he isn’t leaving, so I’m not going anywhere either!”

Gonzo looked at Justin and raised an eyebrow. Justin smiled back and then turned the smile on Cammie.

“Cammie, listen to me, please,” he said as he walked over and took her in his arms. He tilted her chin up and kissed her lightly. “You have to go. You were supposed to be with the convoy that left this morning. If you stay, you’ll be in danger, and I can’t allow that. Nate doesn’t need to lose his mother too. I need you to go now, sweetheart. Ok? I love you.”

Cammie’s eyes welled up with tears. She knew that he was right. After hearing from Jared about the things that Salvatore Lupo was capable of doing, she knew that her safest option was to go with the rest. She just couldn’t do that, though.

“No, Justin!” she declared defiantly. “I’m not going anywhere! I’ll do whatever I have to do, but I am not abandoning you or Jared!”

Her defiance struck a chord in Justin, and he realized the steel resolve beneath her feminine exterior was one thing he loved about her the most. He nodded in defeat.

“Ok, Cammie, but you’re going to stay here until this is over. The mansion is a fortress after the security upgrades that Royce and Tam helped us with, so this is the safest place to be, right now,” Justin said at length. “What about Nate and your parents, though? If Salvatore finds out where they are, they
will
be in danger.”

“I thought about that, and I told Mom and Papa about the situation,” she admitted. “They’re going to take Nate to the resort in Ventura and tell Jimmy that I sent them.”

Justin was mildly surprised, but realized quickly that he shouldn’t be surprised by Cammie.
She’s smart. Very smart,
he thought.

“Ok, sweetheart,” Justin capitulated. “I hope you brought some clothes and other things you’ll need, because this could go on for a while.”

“Already ahead of you, baby,” she winked. “I packed up enough for a few days before I left this morning. The suitcase is in my trunk.”

Before he could respond to that, she kissed him soundly and then left the office.

Gonzo closed the door behind her and turned to Justin. “Fuckin’ hell, sir!” he hissed. “That’s Juan’s widow, for God’s sake!”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Justin replied with a wince. “Four days ago I went to a wedding. She was the Maid of Honor and I was the Best Man. I didn’t plan on falling in love with her and she didn’t plan on falling in love with me. It just happened!”

Gonzo sighed and nodded as his anger and outrage faded quickly. He knew deep down that Justin wouldn’t have gone and intentionally tried to seduce a friend’s widow. “Now here we are in another combat situation, and back into the line of fire.”

“And we’ll survive, Gonzo. We’ll survive,” Justin said with a nod. “My father only hires the best operators from all five services, including the Coast Guard.”

“Coast Guard?” Gonzo snorted a laugh.

“Yes the service that sees more combat on a day-to-day basis than
all
of the other services put together,” Justin said, evenly. “That includes us, man.”

“You’re the boss, boss,” Gonzo smirked. “Let’s go over your duty rosters. You never were very good at those.”

***** ***** *****

“It’s damn good to see you again, Gunny Cooper,” Deck grinned as they walked towards the command center. “I’m glad you got out of Iraq in one piece.”

“Good to see you again too, Deck,” she said with a wink. “Can you talk about what you and your team were doing yet?”

“Trust me, sweetheart,” Deck chuckled. “If I told you, you’d never believe me.”

“Try me,” she replied with a grin. “I already think you’re crazy, ya know.”

“Fair enough. Maybe after this is all over,” Deck hedged. “It’s still technically classified TSCI: Red.”

“Honey, you seem to forget that I have TSCI: Red clearance,” Trina remarked with a raised eyebrow.

It was true. The Pentagon granted it to her and her Lieutenant due them working closely with the Green Berets of Crusader Team.

Deck sighed. “Ok, but
after
this is all over.”

“Fair enough, babe,” she replied and slapped his firm butt playfully as they walked.

Deck smiled as he remembered the nights he spent with her during the Crusaders’ tour in Iraq. When they weren’t out taking down cells of the Crimson Crescent and other hostiles during their tour in Iraq, Deck spent every possible moment with her. When he went back to Afghanistan with the rest of his team, they’d parted as friends.

“Hey, maybe we could…” he started.

“Not gonna happen, Deck baby,” Trina replied with a light laugh. Then she turned serious. “It’s not that I wouldn’t like to under normal circumstances, but I like someone and I have to see if there’s a future there.”

“No problem, Trina,” Deck replied with a shrug. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

“That’s classified, and you Ain’t-Ready-for-the-Marines-Yet, honey,” Trina zinged the old inter-service joke at him.

“Well, at least I’m not one of Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children,” Deck smirked back.

“Keep talkin’ white boy. Keep talkin’,” she snorted. Deck grinned as she gave him a look that could freeze an inferno.

“Yes, dear,” he said flippantly and they both lapsed into silence as they reached the door to the CC, as Ray called it.

“Take a break, Ray,” Trina said with a chuckle. “I want you to meet a friend of mine from Iraq.”

“Ok,” Ray shrugged. “No real rush, but I was in the zone, you know,” he snorted as he swiveled his chair around to face to new arrival.

“Ray, this is…” Trina started.

“Sergeant Declan Shepard!” Ray exclaimed with a gasp. “Holy shit!”

“Uh, you know me?” Deck asked with a bemused expression. His left eyebrow shot upward towards his hairline. “I don’t think we’ve met before.”

“I know
of
you, Sergeant Shepard,” Ray clarified with a wide grin. He got up from his chair and shook the stunned Green Beret’s hand. Then he leaned close and lowered his voice. “I know what you guys did over there. Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Ok,” Deck said noncommittally. “Well, it’s good to meet you too, Ray. Can you give us an update on that Salvatore clown?”

“Oh how I wish I could!” Ray grimaced. “I’m still compiling information from every street camera in Los Angeles. It’s going to take a while.”

***** ***** *****

Four days later, Ray finally caught a break in the investigation. He had way too much information to process and direly wished Tam would come back early from her honeymoon.

He studied each monitor with almost superhuman concentration. As each new piece of information came up on screen, he studied it for anything he could recognize.

He’d hacked into the DMV and all the traffic cameras in Los Angeles. He had to get a bead on where the Maserati went after leaving the street outside the estate.

Ray sighed in frustration as he fast-forwarded through footage after footage. He scanned for the license plate in conjunction with the make and model of Salvatore’s car.

The Maserati showed up on several cameras. All of them showed him heading towards Calabasas. He quickly hacked into that community’s system and downloaded their footage too.

“Hey, Raylan,” Trina called as she led Deck into the command center.

“Hey, Trina!” Ray called over his shoulder. “Great timing! I’m
finally
zeroing in on where Salvatore’s hiding!”

“That’s great, Ray!” Trina said. On impulse, she leaned down and hugged him around the shoulders. “What’ve you got?”

Ray had to untangle his tongue before he could speak. Her friendly gesture, albeit unintentionally, caused him to harden below the belt. “Umm, well, he’s in Calabasas. I’m still tracking him. Give me a moment.”

“Good job, brother. Show us what you’ve got,” Deck said conversationally.

Ray nodded as he returned to his “captain’s chair” as he called it. “I’m still working on it. The cameras in Calabasas aren’t as plentiful as in L.A. itself, so this is going to take some triangulation once I analyze everything from the footage.”

With that said, his fingers flew over the keyboard. He went back to concentrating on the monitors, organizing the footage by the time stamps. He extrapolated the Maserati’s position from how fast it appeared to pass through each camera’s viewing area.

He smiled grimly when he finally lost track of the Maserati. Ray went to the next camera and ran through about a minute of footage, but the car failed to appear. He then brought up a satellite image of the area and zoomed in on the spot where the Italian sports car disappeared.

“Three houses,” he said simply, pointing to each of them on the satellite overlay. Two of them sat side by side, but the third sat across the street from them. “Sorry, but that’s as close as I can get you.”

“Brother that’s all I need,” Deck replied with a smirk. He clapped Ray on the shoulder in congratulations. “Let Justin know that I’m going snooping.”

“Oh before you go, here,” Ray said, handing him a small device that looked a bit like a hearing aid. “It’s an earbud for communications. Tap your ear once, and it automatically connects to me.”

“Thanks Ray,” Deck replied, placing it in his left ear. He shook hands with the tech geek and turned to walk out.

“Hey Shepard,” Trina said as he was about to leave the room. He turned and looked at her.

“Be careful,” she said.

“Aww, you do care!” Deck grinned. Then he turned and left the room.

“You two have a history or something?” Ray asked his friend.

“You might say that, Ray,” she replied. “That’s way in the past, though. I already told him that nothing is going to happen while I have someone else on my mind.”

She looked at him with a little smile on her lips as she finished speaking, and Ray felt himself getting hard again.

***** ***** *****

Cammie sat in her office, going over some legal documents related to the transition of the Wolfe Family into full legitimacy. She had to do something to keep her mind occupied. This whole situation worried her. She searched her feelings and realized that she didn’t want to live without him. After all that they’d gone through together, she didn’t want to lose him now.

She pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind and went over the legal form again. She smiled as she caught a small error and made a notation to correct it. Then an image of Justin’s smiling face popped into her head, and she found herself thinking about him again.
I can’t stop thinking about him! I have to be in love with him! Nothing else even comes close to this feeling.
She thought to herself. The last time she felt like this about any man was with Juan.

All of this time he looked out for her whenever he could. All those times he helped her with something when she couldn’t quite do it herself. All those nights she denied that she felt anything for him but friendship. Now that they finally discovered each other, he could die while fighting the Russian mob and his own uncle. She didn’t want him to die. She could only worry and pray, though. She could be here for him whenever he needed her. After all, he’d been there for her when she needed him the most. She couldn’t let him die. She
had
to be here for him. She said a silent prayer, asking God that they make it through this alive.

“God, please save us all,” she whispered a prayer as she contemplated their enemy. “Please help us through this time of strife.”