Honor Reclaimed (HORNET #2)

Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

“Q, can I talk to you for a second?”

At Gabe’s voice, Quinn straightened away from the satellite images laid out on the table and stretched. Winced. He’d been going over the images all morning with Harvard, trying to match them up with the photos Phoebe had provided of the village and the directions to the compound provided by Tehani. So far, no luck. There were just too many fucking mountains, and they all looked the same.

Sitting still and concentrating on blurry images for so long had stiffened up his bad shoulder and given him a raging headache. He’d wanted to pop some of the pills his doctor had given him for the migraines, but he hadn’t wanted Harvard to see it.

Yeah. He was regretting that decision now.

Gabe stood in the doorway of their makeshift war room and jerked his head in a follow-me gesture.

Something was up.

He trailed Gabe into the hallway, through the building, and out into the backyard, away from where the guys were loading up the two SUVs he and Marcus had stolen yesterday. He bet if their host knew she had two hot vehicles sitting on her property, she’d kick them out, money or no.

The change from dim house to bright sunshine felt like needles stabbing through Quinn’s retinas, and he swallowed back a surge of nausea.

Gabe narrowed his eyes. “You okay?”

No. No, he wasn’t okay. He hadn’t been anywhere in the same postal code as okay since their car accident last year. “Yeah. Dehydrated. What’s up?”

“When we go into the mountains tomorrow, you’re staying here at the shelter.”

Oh fuck. Did Gabe know about the headaches, the blackouts? He scanned his best friend’s features. Gabe was an inscrutable bastard on his best days, but he’d known the guy for so long, he usually had no problem picking out his tells.

But not this time.

Gabe’s expression had closed down tight, and not even a sliver of his thoughts crept through. If he knew about the blackouts, he’d straight-up say so, no pussyfooting around. That was Gabe’s way. But if he didn’t know, why leave Quinn behind on an op? Especially when he’d participated in several rescues in these very mountains while still a SEAL.

Goddammit, he wanted to argue. Wanted to rail against the shitty hand fate had dealt him. But what good would that do? Gabe would only think he’d lost his mind. Which, granted, wasn’t all that far from the truth.

“Why?” he asked instead, and every muscle in his body tightened in dread of the answer.

Gabe glanced toward the house. “A few reasons. If we all leave, the shelter will be vulnerable, and protection was one of Zina’s conditions for allowing us to stay here. I promised her we’d keep the shelter safe as long as we’re in-country.”

So, this had nothing to do with his medical issues after all. Quinn told himself to relax and nodded. “Yeah, I wondered how we’d swing that.”

“Someone has to stay behind and look after these girls.”

“Understood.” But he couldn’t shake the sensation that Gabe was maneuvering him, tactfully keeping him out of the line of fire for some reason. Same this summer when Gabe had handed him the bodyguard assignment for the senator’s family in El Paso, Texas?—

Mara.

Quinn shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. If his skull weren’t already throbbing, he’d bang his head against the wall a couple of times to shake loose the memory of that woman. Goddammit, he wasn’t supposed to think about her anymore. It was one fucking night.

Okay, true. His one-night stand with Senator Escareno’s daughter hadn’t been a shining moment of self-control on his part, but that was no reason for her to keep invading his thoughts.

But there she was. Shy smile. Big, dark eyes. Curves like an old-time movie starlet. Soft black hair that had felt so fucking good between his fingers when he’d held her head still and took her tempting mouth with his…

No.

He forcefully shoved Mara Escareno out of his mind—he seemed to be doing that way too often lately—and refocused on the problem at hand. The shelter. Zak Hendricks. Siddiqui.

He opened his eyes. “You said you had a few reasons. What are the others?”

“Harvard,” Gabe said. “He can’t go up in those mountains.”

Okay, definitely not the answer he’d expected to hear. “Whoa, back up. Harvard? If you’d have said Seth—well, I wouldn’t like it, but yeah, I might have to agree with you. He’s not handling this sitch as well as I had hoped he would. But Harvard?”

Gabe shook his head. “My gut tells me he’s still too green. Hasn’t gotten enough training under his belt yet, and he’s not ready for real combat. Besides, he’s more useful to us on the computer.”

“No doubt, but he’s not gonna like getting left behind.”

“And I don’t like the idea of taking him home in a body bag. He’s just a kid.”

“He’s no younger than we were on our first op,” Quinn reminded.

“And he hasn’t gone through the kind of training we did.”

“Got a point there.” Despite their efforts over the last six months, the team was nowhere near where they wanted them to be training-wise. “I’ve said it before—we need to consider buying a training facility.”

“I know,” Gabe said. “I’ve mentioned the possibility to Tuc, but as of right now, there’s no room in the budget. A training facility’s going to cost us millions. Not to mention, we’d need to hire a staff for the facility. It’s just not feasible right now. Not if we want to hire a pilot any time soon.”

Yeah, Quinn knew that. Still, it was frustrating. The guys all had the potential to be excellent operators if only they had the right training and equipment. But if only wasn’t gonna get the job done now. “So,” he said, getting back to the original topic, “if I’m staying here with Harvard, does that mean you plan on taking Seth with you?”

Gabe hissed out a breath through his teeth. “I should say no. All my reservations about him still stand, but I can’t overlook his intimate knowledge of the enemy, either. As much as I’d prefer to leave him behind—hell, to ship him back to the States where he can get the psychiatric help he needs—part of me fears the information he has might draw the line between our success and failure.”

“I still think you don’t give him enough credit,” Quinn said. “Seth’s a survivor. A fighter. When shit hits the fan, he’s gonna surprise you.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Gabe said, though his tone made it crystal clear he thought he’d see a flying pig first.

“Stubborn jackass,” Quinn muttered.

“You’re one to talk, asshole.”

Out front, a peal of laughter split the air. A man’s, low and rumbling, and one woman’s, high and clear.

Gabe tilted his head toward the sound. “Any luck matching Phoebe’s pictures up to the sat images?”

“Nope.”

“Damn.” Gabe dragged a hand over his face. “I’d much rather leave her behind. I don’t want to run into another situation like with Audrey in Colombia.”

Quinn snorted. “It better not be another Colombia. Audrey will castrate you if you come home with another wife.”

Gabe punched him in the shoulder. His bad shoulder. Hard. It hurt like a bitch, but somehow, it made him feel like all was right with the world.

“I was referring to Seth and Phoebe,” Gabe said.

More laughter out front. A car door shut, and the voices faded. Must be the team was done loading and had gone inside. Which meant they had to cut this convo short and get in there for the pre-mission briefing.

“Yeah,” Quinn said on a long exhale. “I’ve noticed it, too.”

“Think I should be concerned about it interfering? I’m the first to admit I wasn’t at my best in Colombia when Audrey knocked me for a loop. And I wasn’t standing on shaky mental ground at the time, either.”

Quinn gave the question some serious thought as he followed Gabe into the house. Gabe did have a point about the whole knocked-for-a-loop thing, but at the same time…

They stopped outside the room they’d claimed as their base of operations and he noticed Seth sitting with his back to the corner, watching someone. After following the direction of his gaze, Quinn realized that someone was Phoebe. She sat beside him, flipping through a stack of photos, occasionally picking one out to show him.

Yeah. Something there, all right. A spark. A sizzle. It was almost like watching Gabe and Audrey meet again for the first time.

“Hey, look.” He elbowed Gabe in the side and motioned to the couple.

Gabe groaned. “It’s worse than I thought.”

“No,” Quinn said, drawing the word out as he watched. “I don’t think so. Look at him. He’s…relaxed.” Sure, his back was to the corner, but any operative worth his salt would choose the same position in the room. But Seth’s shoulders weren’t tensed up, and he didn’t appear ready to bolt at the first loud noise. His legs were bent, his arms resting casually on his knees, hands dangling until Phoebe pushed a photo toward him. He’d take it, study it, then hand it back. Sometimes, he even murmured a comment.

But the biggest indicator he felt comfortable around her? The hood of his sweatshirt lay flat against his back, his head uncovered.

Quinn glanced over and watched all those same observations register on his best friend’s face.

“Well, fucking A,” Gabe muttered.

“Looks like she might keep him on an even keel.”

“Fucking A,” Gabe said again.

Quinn started forward, but Gabe caught his arm before he stepped into the room and pulled him back to the hall, out of earshot of the guys. “One more thing before we go in there.”

“Yeah?”

Gabe ran his tongue along his teeth, seeming to weigh his words before speaking. “You read all of Hendricks’s reports?”

“Yes, I did. Is there a reason we haven’t briefed the men on that clusterfuck situation yet?”

“Because our focus needs to be one hundred percent on Sergeant Hendricks. The nuke…” He scrubbed a hand over his head and exhaled hard. “Frankly, we don’t have enough manpower to handle something like that. We’re a hostage rescue team, not an anti-terror unit.”

Quinn nodded. “I completely agree, but what are we going to do about it? We can’t let Siddiqui make that deal.”

“I don’t plan to, which brings me to the final reason you need to stay here. Our old team is at Bagram right now.”

“Yeah, I’m not going to ask how you know that.”

“Better not,” Gabe said with a tight smile. “But it’s good to know we have a sympathetic ear in this country. You can take Hendricks’s information to Commander Bennett without telling him how we came into possession of it. Bennett should be able to put it in the right hands in time to stop the deal.”

Quinn’s stomach tightened uncomfortably at the mention of their former commander. He’d never cared for the guy on a personal level, but professionally, Bennett was a solid SEAL. So maybe it was only the idea of seeing the old team again. They had all been supportive since Quinn’s medical retirement, but as time dragged on, they had drifted away. He hadn’t been to Bagram since...well, since returning from the operation that rescued Seth. It promised to be an awkward reunion at best.

He nodded anyway. “I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”