“Is there a punch line in here somewhere?” Brent finally asked Schoolie. “A sarcastic remark? Or are you auditioning to become my therapist?”
Schoolie grinned. “That’s pretty good.”
“Unless you’re picking up my tab, you’re dismissed.”
“Your people won’t even drink with you.”
“They’re not here yet. Get lost, before I pull rank and things get ugly.”
Schoolie snorted. “They’re right over there. They’ve been here for fifteen minutes. You haven’t even noticed.”
Brent rose slightly so he could look over a small wall between the booths. He realized with sagging shoulders that the bastard was right. His entire Ghost Recon team — all eight operators — had put together two tables on the other side of the bar. They were sitting around, drinking, joking, and getting ready to order.
“Look at that. Not a one of them came over here to say, ‘Hey, Captain, why don’t you join us?’ ” said Schoolie.
Brent dropped a few bills on the table, then stood, bracing himself to confront the group.
“I think you got a situation on your hands, Captain,” said Schoolie.
Brent threw up a hand, ignoring the man.
Now Brent’s cheeks began to warm. Yes, they hated him, all right. If they could pick up their game and jettison their bad attitudes, he wouldn’t have to deal with this.
That he kept forgetting their names certainly contributed to their lack of respect. He’d made himself a cheat sheet just to keep track:
Lakota: my assistant. Native American. Wiseass.
Daugherty: the big guy with the tiny voice.
Copeland: the New York mafia guy. Medic.
Riggs: punk chick. Good shot.
Heston: Texas cowboy, movie nut.
Park: Korean guy, never talks.
Noboru: Japanese guy. Uncle was in NSA.
Schleck: string bean. Sniper. I like him.
Brent paused a moment, slipped the index card out of his pocket, stole a quick look at the list of names, then tucked it back into his pocket and slowly approached the table. They weren’t just stereotypical soldiers; they were real people with real hopes and dreams. He knew that, but his job wasn’t to stroke them — it was to whip their asses into shape while earning their loyalty and respect. Easier said than done for a man whose patience was already threadbare.
Conversations broke off, and all gazes fell upon him. He cleared his throat. “What’s up?”
Lakota, who’d taken her hair out of the usual tight bun, looked rather attractive as she raked her fingers through her locks and said, “Captain, uh, I guess we all really need to talk.”
“Yeah, about how much we suck,” said Copeland in his New York drawl. “This is a weird place to be — back in noob school. I thought I was done wearing diapers.”
Just when he’d thought they were respectful enough to keep their complaints to themselves — boom — here they came…
“Copeland, right?” Brent asked.
“Very good, sir.”
“You’re a good medic and a good machine gunner, but they sent you to me because you’re a wiseass.”
“That’s what we heard about you, sir,” said Lakota.
Brent grinned crookedly. “I want to clarify that. I’ve been doing this long enough to realize what works and what doesn’t. That’s all. I’ll do my best to get the job done and keep you alive. That’s why we’re back here, back to the beginning. This is good. This keeps us humble and honest. I’m not trying to be anything I’m not. I’ve been skipped over for promotions. My record ain’t that great. My personal life is nonexistent. But I like to think I got heart. And I’m betting you got heart, too.”
“Sir, this might keep us honest, but I’d rather keep lying,” said Riggs, wriggling her brows, her spiked hair hard as icicles. “We all know what you’re trying to do, and we appreciate the idea, but the fact is we’ve all just had bad luck.”
“Well, there you go. I appreciate that honesty,” said Brent.
“And speaking of being honest, why don’t you do the same with us, sir?” said Heston, his voice coming slowly, musically. “Luck or not, we’re all close to getting busted out of here and sent back down to SF or the regular Army.”
“That’s not true,” Brent said, tasting the lie. “Look, we get through this, you prove to me you’re ready, and I’m sure something will come along that will…”
Brent didn’t finish his sentence. His phone was vibrating in his pocket. The caller ID was blocked.
His people groaned as he answered. He held up a palm when he realized who was calling.
On the way over to the isolation chamber, Brent accessed the network on his smartphone and retrieved the declassified bio on Major Alice Dennison, tactical operations specialist, code name “Hammer.”
When the Joint Strike Force had formed and had better organized all of the United States’ military operations through concentrated global network systems, Dennison had become a key player. She’d been raised in a military family, with a father who’d been an Air Force pilot. She’d attended the Virginia Military Institute and had graduated with the class of 2004. Then she’d gone to the naval academy, received her BS in systems engineering, and had graduated summa cum laude. She’d been in U.S. naval intelligence and logistics and gone on to serve in the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command. She had been selected by General Scott Mitchell himself to join the JSF.
Brent’s eyes bugged out as he finished reading the screen. General Scott Mitchell was a former Ghost Recon operator, one of the organization’s best, a living legend who now led the entire Joint Strike Force.
And Dennison had been recruited by him.
This was huge. Dennison was a major player with a record that made you hate how good she was.
Brent frowned. And then he really frowned.
Why the hell did Dennison want to talk to him, a scrubby-faced gunslinger with a tainted record?
They reached the base, and the isolation chamber wasn’t a chamber at all but a heavily guarded Quonset hut near the nondescript cluster of small buildings that housed Ghost Recon command. There were no signs, no indication at all that some of the world’s deadliest warriors were commanded from this post.
Inside, Brent took a seat before a sixty-inch screen, along with the rest of his team. They were instructed to wait there until Major Dennison called again.
At the back of the room sat two men, and Brent had to do a double take, pun intended, because they were, in fact, twins, one well dressed in slacks and expensive silk shirt, the other wearing jeans and a T-shirt that read MUCKY DUCK RESTAURANT, CAPTIVA ISLAND, FLORIDA. They were both at least six feet, perhaps slightly taller, as lean as Olympic swimmers, and although they both had the same length blond hair, the jeans guy wore his all shaggy and sticking out, while the slacks guy had gelled his back. They might be twins, but there was a definite and deliberate distinction between them that seemed more on the part of the sloppy guy than the neat one.
Brent smiled weakly at them. The jeans guy nodded. The slacks guy looked daggers and folded his arms over his chest.
“Hey, Captain, who’re they?” asked Lakota in a near whisper.
Just then a burst of static and series of encryption code numbers scrolled across the screen for a few seconds until an image appeared. On the left was Major Alice Dennison, too pretty for her own good and remarkably young for her post. On the right was another woman, much older, with gray streaks through her medium-brown hair. Her narrow glasses suggested she was as much academic as she was intelligence officer.