Sworn to Secrecy (Special Ops) (6 page)

“I thought maybe she was single since you helped potty…train,” he shook his head. Now the word was going to be stuck with him too.

“No, her husband was just real busy and she had all these social obligations to tend to, so I would let Yasline come to the office with me while I worked. I potty trained her while we were in the office. I left her little portable pot on the floor of my office so she could go.” She laughed. “It took a while. I kept telling her to tell me when she had to go, but would she do it? No,” she drew out the word. “She would walk up to me, those big green eyes smiling up at me and say, I pottied.” He couldn’t help but laugh too. “She was supposed to tell me before she went in the pull-ups. When she got sick I think I took it just as hard as they did because she was kind of like my little girl too. I taught her how to count, say her ABCs, read, and use the potty. I had her at my office nearly every day unless her mother had to take her to a function. And when there was a doctor’s appointment, I took her to that too.”

Sounded to him like Yasline was more Carissa’s child than not. “Why were you doing all of this and not them?”

“They were busy I guess. Besides I loved doing it. I always wanted kids, or pets,” she hobbled on over to him and he rushed to help her sit down with greater ease than she would have done on her own.

“Never had either, huh?”

“I had a few pets growing up; they all died very unhappy deaths and I cried for days. I gave up after that. And as far as kids go I…I can’t have any. I wanted them. I was even going to do IVF, but…my eggs aren’t viable.” She sighed. “I could always use donor eggs I guess, but I wanted my own.”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

“Doctors said there’s only a fifteen percent chance I’ll ever be able to get pregnant.”

“Fifteen percent doesn’t sound like never to me.”

He watched her face closely. She was thinking about what he said, he could tell from the way her eyes focused on the empty wall as if there was something of interest there to be studied. Finally, she smiled and looked at him. “You’re right. Fifteen percent is still a possibility. Maybe one day—if I live.”

“You’re going to live. Trust me when I tell you that I won’t let anybody kill you.”

She nodded. “I feel safer with you. The Feds promised me I would be safe, but with you I actually believe it.” She turned her head and looked at the wall again. “I don’t know what hurts more; my leg or my arm…maybe they hurt about the same.”

“Getting shot is not something I’d wish on any good person. The bad guys I couldn’t say the same for. You’ll be okay. It’s going to scar. I couldn’t stitch you up perfectly.”

“You saved my life. A scar seems like nothing when it comes to the fact that I could be dead. Besides, I have other scars…I’ll just add these two to the list.”

“Yeah, about that. I saw one on your leg that I…I have to ask you about.”

“The iron print?”

He had seen it while he was dressing the wound on her leg. It was a faint impression, but there was no mistaking that a hot iron had touched her leg.

“My parents were fighting over something. I don’t even remember what really. I just know that my dad tried to touch my mom’s hand. She jumped back to move away from him. She brushed up against the ironing board and the iron fell. Because I loved being pretty much right under my mother I was sitting on the floor by the ironing board so when the iron fell it fell on me. I was wearing shorts and…well…at least it made them stop fighting.” She shrugged. “It’s kind of hard to fight when your little girl is screaming to the top of her lungs.”

“They shouldn’t have been fighting around you.”

“About a month after that, my mother…died. Her plane crashed while she was on the way to see her parents. I think it broke my dad’s heart. He looked after me a lot more after that. We were all each other had. I think knowing he almost lost me too probably made him care more.”

“You were supposed to be on that plane.”

She nodded. “He says I wasn’t, but I remember my mom telling me we were going to see my grand ma-ma, as I always called her. I remember her telling me that, but when the day came for my mom to leave she didn’t take me with her. Dad says I remember it wrong, but I know I’m not wrong.”

“We’ll get this sorted out, Carissa. You won’t have to be in hiding forever, but I can’t take you back right now. I need to know what’s going on before I take you back.”

She smiled at him, relief flickering in her eyes. “Thank you, not just for saving my life, but for keeping me safe. But in order to find out everything you are going to have to take me back to Texas at some point.”

“Yeah, I know,” he admitted reluctantly. He had already talked to Preston and they had nothing at this point. He was still trying to find out some information, and he was going to look into Special Agent Garrison, but right now they were at a great disadvantage when it came to having information on the enemy. They all agreed he and Carissa should stay in the Keys a little longer. He would love to keep her there until she healed completely, but he knew that wasn’t an option. They didn’t have long enough to wait for that. They would have to go back. Whatever she was hiding was important and they needed it to see just who they could trust here and where they were going. OTG was a stable domestic terrorist group. No agency had gotten close enough to take them down. By way of terrorists, this group was full of geniuses. He figured they had the best hackers money could buy, a militia trained in the art of war, maybe some of them were former military themselves, and they definitely had enough money to buy weapons and their secure compound. He figured Carissa’s father is where the money part came into play. He didn’t know how long Ronald had been mixed up with this cell, but he knew if the man was funneling money to them then they had deep pockets.

When he got his rescue mission assignment he didn’t bank on things getting this complicated. He thought a simple in and out mission was all he had coming his way, but now he had something just as important—now he needed to help stop Carissa’s father from killing her. He needed to try to help take down one of the biggest domestic terrorist cells in history and he needed to do it sooner rather than later. Maybe the most unsettling part was that he didn’t think he could accomplish the last part of the equation. OTG had been on the government watch list for the past fifteen years from what he had heard. In those years they had grown stronger, starting with a small handful of devoted followers and growing to over three hundred thousand strong. At least that’s the information he had been able to get from Preston.

“So how long are we staying here?”

“A couple weeks probably. Preston wants to gather more information, see who we can trust and get some things sorted out before I take you back to Austin. At least it will give you a little time to heal. You need that.”

“I’m feeling better than before…or is that just the pain killers you gave me?”

He chuckled. “The pain killers,” he assured her. She wasn’t anywhere near healed yet. It had been a little over twenty-four hours since she got shot. There was no way she was going to be doing cartwheels this soon. Although he could say that she was healing faster than he thought she would. Any other civilian and he would have expected a bedridden patient for at least a week, but she was already up and finding things to hold on to just to make her way to the places she needed or wanted to go. He shouldn’t be surprised. He had seen that fire in her down in Central America. She wasn’t the kind of woman to sit back and wait for somebody to do something for her. She was the type who would find a way to get things done on her own if she had to. She wasn’t alone any longer. She wouldn’t have to do this alone. He would make sure he helped her, even if that meant stepping outside the role he played in the Squadron. He would not leave it to the Feds because clearly they had already messed this one up. She would be dead in less than twenty-four hours if he entrusted her to them.

“Did anybody speak English in that village? I saw you fussing with those women when you came out of the tent.” He had to admit that curiosity was getting the best of him. Did they speak English or did she just speak another language?

She laughed. “No, and I don’t speak anything else. I sign, but that’s not really spoken you know…anyway, they were trying to get my shirt off and that’s what I was fussing about.”

“Your shirt?”

“They wanted me to fit in I guess. In case you didn’t notice the people there didn’t wear much clothing.”

“I noticed,” he admitted. “So they wanted you to get naked.”

“Mostly naked,” she admitted. “Well, just the top part. They didn’t seem to have a huge problem with my cargo pants. Although they did like to pull on them. They were really nice, but I have no idea what they were actually saying. I learned a few words, but just when it came to food. Whenever they tried to offer me something to eat I picked up on the words they used. I can’t believe they saved me and sheltered me.”

They probably had her picked out to become a wife for one of the men, at least that’s what he thought, but he wouldn’t tell her that. He could have been wrong. Maybe there were still some good people out there who would help without wanting something in return. Speaking of food, he thought about the fact that she hadn’t eaten since he rescued her. “Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” she nodded quickly. “Starving.”

“I’ll fix something.”

“You have food here? Of course you do,” she sighed. “You wouldn’t have offered if you didn’t have food.”

“Julian brought some essentials over before he took the plane back to Texas.”

“Who’s Julian?”

“Our pilot. The guy who got us out of the battle zone and here to safety. He’s in the Air Force, but he works for our company when he has downtime.”

“Are they allowed to do that?”

Alex shrugged. “Preston has connections in places I don’t even know about yet. He can pretty much get whatever he wants, whenever he wants it. I think there’s more to him than what he lets any of us know about.” He brushed his hand over his short cut hair. “We all have our secrets so none of us push for more details than the other is willing to give. He’s a good guy, which is all I need to know. And his connections help the company too. Julian is really good, and I hope he’ll join the team when he puts in his papers.”

“You have your own personal pilot then,” she smiled. “Must be nice.”

“Well the other guys are Air Force too. I’m the only Marine. But as you can imagine it’s not always the best idea, or the most acceptable one, to be responsible for the search and rescue while still trying to be responsible for the plane. We use Julian when we can and Jet’s friend when Julian isn’t available.”

“Why not just hire Jet’s friend then?”

“He’s not a military guy. He can handle things, but this really isn’t his scene. He worked for the Texas Rangers until it became too much for him. He’s had his pilot’s license since he was seventeen and he can handle just about any plane you give him. He’s a good guy, but his heart isn’t into this stuff full-time. He let us know that up front. When we have to go and we’re flying solo he jumps in. Otherwise, if two people go on the same mission one is flying, one is rescuing. Those are rare. When two people go it’s generally because two people are needed for the rescue so we typically still need a pilot. It’s case by case.”

She nodded again. “I see. So is this the standard rescue—getting shot and all?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s easier. Just a simple in and out—well, simple for us anyway.” Most people probably wouldn’t see it as simple. They didn’t just go into hot zones. Occasionally the call came in for a missing heiress who just had to try out her wild side on top of a snow capped mountain. He and Jet had pulled off a rescue mission on one of those assignments. The chopper had gotten them so far, and then they had to jump out and climb the rest of the way. Thanks to Alex’s physical fitness and Jet’s skills they were able to pull off the rescue. He would say it was one of the more difficult rescue assignments. There weren’t any bad guys with guns but nature could be a cruel mistress and that storm that came through made it really difficult to get down to the pickup point. They could have all died, but none of them did. Somebody would probably find it odd that he thought that was his most difficult mission to date, but it was. All the others had been so close to what he had been trained for that they didn’t feel as if they fell into the category of most difficult missions. Tough? Some of them were, yes, but he knew how to shoot. He knew how to survive gunfire, and a mortal enemy. Surviving a mountain, a winter storm and dense air was something he wouldn’t say he was ready to experience. He had done hiking before, but this wasn’t hiking. This had pushed him beyond his normal level of comforts. He had survived it and that alone made him proud of his ability. Working with these men was teaching him more about himself than he had learned while in the military. He was learning the limits he thought he had were limits he could break.