Zone of Action (In the Zone) Read online

  Chief Warrant Officer Hal Linder visited Cam in the infirmary later that day. Cameron hadn’t immediately remembered what had happened. He had the mother-of-all headaches, and his nose felt the size of a baseball. He’d been told it wasn’t broken, but it sure as hell felt like it. At least he hadn’t lost any teeth, though he figured he’d be eating through a straw for a while.

  According to the doc, Brett hit him in the head with the toilet tank lid. Well, that explained his loss of consciousness. He thought he remembered Brett patting him down for the cuff keys and taking his weapon. He also had a vague impression of Brett telling him something, something important, but the harder he concentrated, the stronger his head throbbed. He dropped his head back on his propped pillow and grimaced.

  He should have expected Brett to put up a fight. He had considered it, but his one-time buddy had hoodwinked them all with his good behavior while he was incarcerated. Looking back now, Cameron should have known his friend wouldn’t accept being locked up. He’d disliked all the rules of the Army, the stricture on his behavior. Why did people who hated being told what to do enlist in the first place? If he ever caught the bastard, he’d ask him. After he punched him in the face.

  “He said he needed to take a piss.” It was degrading to have to explain that to his boss.

  “Are you serious? You fell for that line? That’s the oldest trick in the book, Harris. I’m surprised at you. And disappointed.”

  “No more disappointed than I am in myself, sir. I followed all prisoner transport protocols. I vetted the room, left his cuffs on him, and kept the door unlocked. If he’d really had to go, and I refused him, Brett would be the type to scream inhumane treatment. That wouldn’t look much better on the record.”

  “It would look a hell of a lot better, Harris, make no mistake.” Linder paced at the foot of Cameron’s bed, running a hand over his buzzed head. He was a tall and lanky man in his early fifties. He’d always treated his agents well and had a good head for solving crimes. Just like Cameron, he took this personally.

  Cameron watched him a few moments, racking his brain for the words Brett had spoken right before he escaped. He must’ve frowned, because Linder snapped, “What’s wrong?”

  Cam met his gaze. “I’m trying to remember what the bastard said right before I clocked out. I know it’s important.”

  The doc came in, a burly African American man with surprisingly gentle hands, even though they were the size of hams. “My patient needs rest, sir. Hammering him with questions will only impede his progress.”

  Linder tried to stare the doc down. The glare, usually successful with soldiers, had no effect on the medical man. He turned it on Cameron instead.

  “Get your beauty rest, Harris. And try like hell to remember. I can only keep a lid on this for so long.” He about-faced and strode from the infirmary with a terse nod to the doctor.

  Cam chafed at the inactivity. He was rarely ill or wounded badly enough to require enforced idleness. Resting was a lot harder than he’d thought. Someone came in every hour, shining a light in his eyes and taking his vitals. His headache had subsided to a dull pounding. When food arrived, he couldn’t smell it or taste it. He could’ve been eating the soles of his boots for all he knew. And still he couldn’t remember what the hell Brett had said.

  What he did remember was his failure. His failure to contain a prisoner. He’d spent his Army career sharpening his skills, physically and mentally, and now this. An ignominious smack in the head with a toilet tank lid.

  He was the guy who could evaluate a situation with one quick, analytical sweep of his eye. Just like in Kabul three years ago. He’d known the street meeting was rigged. Everything in him screamed something wasn’t right, but he’d let Brett blow him off and had been wounded consequently. And now there was this. Another lapse in judgment.

  Was he getting too old for this career? He was only thirty-two, the still “getting your shit together” stage in real life. But the Army was different. Every year, pimply-faced privates with their eighteenth birthday candles barely blown out joined the ranks next to him. Younger, stronger, hang-on-to-your-balls-and-jump braver. Was he becoming too…cautious? Complacent? Was it time for him to get out?

  He gazed at the ceiling. The Army was his life. It had given him a purpose. He’d listened to his sergeants, watched soldiers he wanted to emulate, and volunteered for increasingly dangerous assignments to stretch his strengths, hone his skills, until he reached the top of his game. And then Kabul had happened.

  That had sent him back a few paces, until he’d switched gears and joined the CID. And he was on his way to becoming the best of the best there. And then this happened. Which brought him back to square one in this Dr. Phil self-eval: was it time for him to move on? Join the civilian sector? His heart sank at the thought.

  No. He was a soldier, through and through. Setbacks happened in everyone’s lives, wasn’t that what his previous CO had said after he was wounded in Kabul? It was how you bounced back that defined you as a soldier. Wallow in self-pity, and you might as well hang up your dog tags. And here Cameron was, doing a hell of a lot of wallowing. He rolled to his side, then stared at the drip, drip, drip of the IV…

  At some point after his vitals were taken for what seemed the hundredth time, he must have dozed off, only to jerk awake when an IED went off in his dream. He hadn’t been deployed for several years, but the nightmares persisted. He panted as he looked around the room, reorienting himself to the infirmary.

  His mind splintered, and he was lying on the floor of that gas station quick stop. Brett’s hands patted him down while Cameron struggled to stay conscious. He heard him hiss, “You’re lucky we got a history, Cam, or you’d be dead. What’s already in motion has gotta be finished, and then I’m a ghost. Wish it coulda been different, bud.”

  The memory faded. Cameron calmed his breathing, yet his chest tightened like the skin of a drum. “What’s already in motion,” Brett had said. What’s in motion? What was he talking about? And would he make good on his threat to his ex-girlfriend, Audrey Jenkins, now that he’d escaped? Would she know what Brett was hinting at?

  Cameron remembered what she looked like at the court martial. Medium height, slim yet curvy in that skirt and blouse she’d worn to testify in, with long, dark hair past her shoulders. She’d had a pointed chin that she’d lifted in defiance of Brett’s defense attorney’s sharp questions, and a direct gaze that never faltered. She’d answered the questions without giving more. Tight-lipped. Did she know more about Brett’s plans than she let on?

  He’d never met her while she’d been with Brett. Having no girlfriend himself, going out as a third wheel wasn’t enjoyable. Besides, he always had a ton of cases to keep him busy. He didn’t have time to spend on more than a casual hookup, which he had no trouble getting. But if he had, she was definitely his type.

  He needed to let Linder know what he remembered. Brett had a head start. There was no time to waste. Cam waited until the doc was busy with an incoming patient before removing his IV and slipping out of the infirmary.

  He stood in Linder’s office doorway until the man looked up. His eyes widened. Cam imagined he resembled a zombie, with his bandages and bruises and swaying stance. He began speaking before his CWO could erupt.

  “Gates has a plan. I remembered what he said before he bashed me in the head.” He repeated what Brett said, ending with, “I don’t know what he meant, but he’s definitely got an agenda.”

  Linder motioned Cam to the chair across from his desk. Cam moved slowly into the room and sank into it. Another headache began to pound behind his eyes. Or maybe it was the same one. He willed it away. Now wasn’t the time for weakness. He held Linder’s gaze—any sign of frailty and he’d be ordered back to the infirmary.

  “Sonuvabitch. Well? You knew him best. What’s he up to? Where’s he going? Could he be working with someone? Nothing was found
on that laptop we confiscated, besides its special browser ability to get on the Dark Web. What a colossal shit-show.”

  Cam bristled, even though he knew Linder was right. His own opinion of himself wasn’t very high right now, but he still didn’t like hearing it from someone else. Was he losing his touch?

  He shook off the little bastard of self-doubt that was trying to take hold inside him and concentrated on how to find Brett before he got farther away. More importantly, he had to figure out what the hell Brett was planning. His ex-buddy wouldn’t not have a scheme.

  Cam searched his mind, speaking his thoughts as they bombarded him. “Why escape? Why is he needed on the outside? He implied a job was already in motion. What is it? Does it relate to when he got caught? That deployment to Somalia? Or something else? Does his ex have something on him that would send him to her?”

  A sick dread spread through him at the thought. He’d been disgusted enough when it was discovered that Brett was selling troop deployment locations. Was his one-time friend out for blood? His ex-girlfriend’s, to be exact? Did she know something he needed to keep quiet at all costs? His blood chilled, and his headache raged. His headache, and his sense of duty.

  He inhaled through his nose, breathed out through his mouth, that calming technique learned at PTSD therapy sessions. It helped clear the haze of fury. He concentrated past the anger and the pain.

  At one time he had known Brett better than anyone else. Now there was someone besides him who’d spent day and night with Brett. Someone who’d shared a bed with him. Someone who wouldn’t want to see him show up at her door again. The same someone who could help Cam figure out what the hell Brett was involved in.

  She wasn’t going to like seeing Cam, though. Especially if she was hiding something. She’d distanced herself from the Army for a reason and hadn’t looked very happy to be in the courtroom at Brett’s court martial. He’d have his work cut out for him just to get her to listen to him.

  Linder was right. What a shit-show.

  …

  The bouquet was almost perfect. Audrey stepped back to study the Rhapsody in Blue sympathy arrangement she was preparing. While funeral and condolence floral arrays weren’t her favorite to compose, they were a necessary part of her business. They provided a sort of comfort to those left behind.

  She cocked her head. It needed a few more white button mums to contrast with the blue irises and hydrangea blooms. The blues were overpowering the overall look. She adjusted her earbuds before going to the refrigerated mum case. Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” began to blast through them. She welcomed the sound.

  She’d become addicted to the head banger music after the bombing in Kandahar. It was one of the few ways she could block the images and sounds that continued to haunt her from that day. Many soldiers sought solace from PTSD in music, while others found it a trigger. She didn’t consider herself a sufferer. She bet the Army shrink would differ with her even now.

  The music echoed through her body, the thump of the drum rhythmic and primal. It freed her to feel and let her thoughts roam free. Her head began to nod to the beat. The music, the flowers. They all represented the lack of restrictions she embraced. The words were immaterial.

  The tap on her shoulder sent her spinning around, brandishing the mum stalks in an outside block that almost caught Elena in the face. Her friend must’ve expected that reaction, for she’d already retreated.

  Audrey pulled the earbuds from her ears. “Damn it, Elena, don’t sneak up on me like that.”

  “I wasn’t sneaking. I yelled for you, but that shit you listen to drowned me out. Like always. You have a visitor.”

  “It helps me create. What type of visitor? Not OSHA, is it?” They’d found her shop violation-free earlier in the year. She wouldn’t have run it any other way. When Elena didn’t respond immediately, Audrey frowned and looked at her closely.

  “Who is it?” She nudged her friend before setting the flowers on the butcher block island and starting out to the front of the store without waiting for Elena’s answer. When she saw who it was, she understood why the other woman had hesitated.

  In the relaxed uniform of white, short-sleeved shirt and blue trousers of the CID stood the handsome soldier she’d last seen and admired at Brett’s court martial. His back was to her, but she recognized his attire, and she’d never forget the man himself, or her reaction to his appearance that day in the courtroom. She’d found him attractive then, and by the way she was studying his wide shoulders, narrow waist, and tight ass right now, that attraction hadn’t diminished.

  Irritated at her response, she snapped, “What are you doing here?”

  The man turned around. She swallowed the gasp that rose in her throat. The left side of his handsome face was bruised—black, purple, with an underlying yellow tinge. The gaze he pinned on her was direct, but she could see weariness in the depths of his brown eyes.

  A sense of dread lapped at the edges of her consciousness. She knew she wasn’t going to like whatever he had to say. It didn’t take long to find out.

  “Brett Gates escaped.”

  She closed her eyes. Of course he had. She opened them and jutted her chin toward the CID agent’s face. “Did he do that?”

  The soldier nodded. “I’m sorry. My lapse in judgment has endangered you.”

  He believed what he was saying. It was in the expression on his face, in the slight sag of his wide shoulders. She wondered what he’d done, or hadn’t done, that had enabled Brett to escape. Whatever it was, he took full responsibility. That fascinated her.

  It was time to let him off the hook. “Now that you’ve forewarned me, I can take care of myself.”

  He blinked in acknowledgment. She straightened, adding, “You could have just called me.”

  “Unfortunately, there’s more. Can we talk somewhere…private?” His gaze arrowed over her shoulder, telling her Elena hovered. She wondered again why people felt the need to protect her. First this stranger, and now Elena. She’d been taking care of herself for a long time. It was time she conveyed that fact more strongly. She shrugged at her friend, who went into the back room. Probably standing at the door eavesdropping.

  “Whatever it is, I can handle it. Uncle Sam gave me a lot of time and training. If Brett is stupid enough to come here, I’ll be ready. But he’s not dumb. The best thing he could do is go somewhere far from me.”

  He pinned his gaze on Audrey’s face. Again, she knew she wasn’t going to like whatever he had to say. She took a step back.

  “That’s just it. He escaped for a reason, and I need to find out what it is. He hinted that something’s already in the works. I don’t know if he’s coming here for revenge, or something else. You knew him best. You were his whiz kid. What could he be up to?”

  Although the special agent’s tone when he said “something’s in the works” alerted her, it was the words “his whiz kid” that ignited an indignant fire within. They implied Brett had taught her everything she knew about terror cells and their recruitment process. Nothing could be further from the truth. The slow burn inside her accelerated.

  “I was never Brett’s whiz kid. We were a team, with each member bringing certain strengths to the table. I was damn good at my job, but that job is over. I said everything I know at his court martial. I’m sorry that you came all this way for nothing. Maybe next time you could save the taxpayers’ money and just make a phone call. You know your way out, Special Agent.”

  She gave him a sharp nod, recognizing the quick glint of admiration that flit through his gaze before she turned and marched into the rear design area. It was several moments before she heard the front door hiss closed behind him.

  Chapter Four

  “Why was he here?”

  Audrey faced Elena with a “you’ve got to be kidding me” expression. “Don’t act so innocent, Leni. I’m sure you listened in.”r />
  A sly smile crossed Elena’s face. “I remember him from the douchebag’s court martial. He’s still hot as hell. I was too busy studying his…attributes to pay attention to what he was saying.”

  Audrey snorted. The CID agent had some fine attributes, that was for sure. She’d already noticed them in court, and again today, but it was his words that continued to resonate.

  Brett’s whiz kid, for starters. She’d earned her rep on her own, thank you very much. She’d taken pride in her profiling abilities and knew she still had the knack. She didn’t want to use them, that’s all. As good as she was, she hadn’t been able to turn that cell recruit in Kandahar, resulting in the deaths of children and more. That had been the tipping point. But she sure as hell wasn’t Brett’s whiz kid.

  She answered Elena’s question. “Brett escaped.”

  “Are you serious? How? That asshole can’t stay gone.” She paused. “Wait. Does that hottie agent think the douche is coming after you?”

  Audrey met Elena’s gaze with what she hoped was calm. Elena had been like a mother hen since Brett’s incarceration. Though she appreciated her friend’s concern, she didn’t want her any more involved than she already was. Audrey was a soldier; she knew what to do in any given situation. Elena was a civilian. A hot-headed one. That wasn’t a good combination.

  “He wanted to warn me, especially after Brett’s theatrics at his court martial. That’s all.”

  “Why didn’t he just call, then?”

  Oh hell. She should’ve known Elena would put two and two together. She patted her friend’s shoulder. “I suggested that. He seems to think Brett has a bigger agenda than only going after me. He thought I might be able to shed some light on Brett’s motives.”