Headed for Trouble

A SEAL AND THREE BABIES


March 2009

This story takes place several weeks after Hot Pursuit, and a month or so before Breaking the Rules.

CHAPTER ONE

The tiny country of Tarafashir

A narrow portable stairway had been pushed up against the commercial airliner, and the metal pinged and shuddered under Sam Starrett’s boots as he squeezed his way down to the airport runway. He had his son, Ash, in one arm, Ash’s diaper bag over his shoulder, and not just one but two car seats in the other hand.

They were bulky and awkward, and it was all about getting a good grip—and having large enough hands.

Robin and Jules Cassidy were right behind him, wrestling with the third car seat along with a variety of the group’s carry-on bags. Then Sam’s wife, Alyssa, muscled down the two strollers they’d need for this months-long adventure, followed by Max and Gina Bhagat, who carried their freakishly polite three-year-old daughter, and their eight-month-old high-decibel soliloquist son, who was still bewailing the entire traveling team’s frustration, discomfort, and bitter disappointment.

This little multifamily outing had quickly turned into a misadventure when their first flight was delayed—nearly six hours at the gate, and well over two on the tarmac, at J-Effing-K. As a result, they’d arrived in London at WTF o’clock, having missed their connecting flight, an event that had dominoed and created a need to take this latest several-hours-delayed flight which in turn had had a mild midair emergency with the electrical system, requiring that they land here, in the tiny country of Tarafashir, still a four-hour crapfest from their final destination.

Sam was well aware that there were definitely worse places to make an unplanned landing—Libya, Pakistan, Kazbekistan, to name a few. At least T-fashir was U.S.-friendly and safe, although mostly piss-poor. The government was a monarchy, and their leader a king who had, at one point, not just been a monk, but, according to legend, a stoner monk.

The country’s major exports in past decades had been marijuana and opium. And although there was a vaguely successful program in place in which farmers who replaced their crops with soybeans received sufficient food and medical care for their villages, it was clear to Sam, just from looking at the badly patched and pitted runway, that the also-promised modernization of the Tarafashir infrastructure had again been delayed.

Possibly because the entire country still had a raging case of the munchies.

“They’re holding our flight to Kabul. Gate one. It’s on the other side of the terminal,” Max Bhagat announced as he ended his phone call and slipped his cell into the pocket of his jeans before helping Gina juggle their two kids. Mikey, the eight-month-old, was usually as goofily, droolfully cheerful as Sam’s son, Ash.

Usually.

Today Mike had fussed and worried his way through the seemingly endless flight, needing all four parental hands to cope. His sister, Emma—age three-going-on-forty—had been safely tucked in between her Uncle Robin and Uncle Jules. Emma had played for a while with one-year-old Ash—who’d gone into pissed mode, no doubt at Mikey’s stellar example, and who had decided he wouldn’t even think about napping unless he sat on Uncle Robin’s lap—until he’d finally fallen unconscious. Ash, that is, not Robin. At which point Em had no doubt spent the remaining hours of the flight discussing the socioeconomic ramifications of The Cat in the Hat with her patient pseudo-uncles.

The little girl was freakishly smart, impossibly polite and well-behaved, and way too somber for her own good. Plus, she was a tiny sponge—always, always watching and listening to the grown-ups around her.

“Shit.” Jules now swore at Max’s news about the flight to Kabul, not quite under his breath. He then made a face at Emma, whose brown eyes had become even bigger at his slip.

Sam found that to be one of the biggest discomforts of parenting—the inability to say shit in times like these, when a pungent and heartfelt shit was clearly needed.

In the past well-over-twenty-four-hours of nonstop, cranky-child-inducing, slow-mo travel, this was the one flight they could’ve stood to miss.

But as Emma giggled at the silly face Jules made, Sam made a note and filed it under useful information. The fact that Emma was capable of smiling, let alone giggling, was good to know.

Of course, Uncle Jules was special.

And not just because he was an FBI agent, or because he was fabulous and gay-married to a movie star.

Jules was … Jules. One of a kind.

“It’s all right, babe,” Robin murmured, giving his husband a smile and a nudge with his shoulder. “We always know this might happen, anytime we travel. And it’s good. You need to get there.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jules muttered back on a sigh. “I just wanted … at least to be able to say goodbye properly.”

“We got time,” Sam pointed out. “They’re holding the flight.”

Max’s announcement was good news in the big-picture sense—and not entirely unexpected considering that Max, a high-level FBI agent, had the President’s private number among his list of contacts on his phone.

Sam turned to look at Alyssa, who took Ash from his arms.

“Mommy wants to say a bad word, too,” she told their son, who gave her a drooly smile as he burbled some of his near-perpetual joy back at her, unaware of his own impending misfortune.

Alyssa looked back at Sam then, and he could see her unhappiness. This was the hardest part—she hated this kind of separation. She preferred working with him, but she knew damn well that they couldn’t both go out into dangerous, terrorist-filled countries. Not together. Not anymore. Because of Ash.

He and his wife risked their lives for a living—that wasn’t going to change—but they could no longer risk them both at the same time.

And that sucked.

But it also didn’t suck—again, because of Ash.

“We’ll be fine,” Sam told the woman who was not just the love of his life, but the best team leader he’d ever had. She was commanding, decisive, cool under pressure, compassionate, intelligent, and hot as hell when she barked out orders. Yeah, he was going to miss working with her on this op, too. But he’d survive. “We’re gonna be okay.”

“I know that.” Lys managed a smile as she locked Ash into the frontpack she wore, so she could carry those strollers while Sam humped it with the car seats and their carry-ons.

Together, with Max and Gina leading the way, with Jules and Robin on their heels, Sam and his family went into the airport’s crowded terminal—assuming this rusting and ancient World War II–era Quonset hut could be called a terminal.

It was cooler inside, but only slightly. The building wasn’t air conditioned, and the big fans overhead spun slowly, lazily. Sam could see the fading red paint of a sign for gate one on the other side of the structure.

“I just really wanted to help get you settled,” Lys told him as they threaded their way through the crowd of locals, most of whom wore the unmistakable white robes that identified them as monks, their shaved heads gleaming in the cheap fluorescent lighting. “And I really don’t like leaving you here. Tarafashir was not part of the plan. We shouldn’t be the ones to leave first.”

“We’re gonna be okay,” Sam said again. “Our flight’s in just a few hours. Those of us who are small will change our diapers, those who are bigger will get something to eat that’s hopefully neither dog or goat, and we’ll all stretch our legs. We’ll be fine, and then we’ll be in a resort hotel on a private island in the Aegean sea.”

Alyssa, Jules, and Max, however, would be not in a seaside resort hotel. They’d be in landlocked Afghanistan, sleeping in barracks or maybe even in drafty tents. They’d barely have time, after touching down in Kabul, to grab a meal before they went wheels up again, this time to the first of a half dozen FOBs—remote military forward operating bases in the mountains. The chosen FOBs were all regular stops on the standard USO tour, and the President was determined to visit at least one of them during his upcoming trip.

As members of the special advance advisory team in charge of providing information to ensure the President’s security during his impending visit, they would have to evaluate them all.

Over at gate one, Max had set down the various pieces of luggage he’d been carrying, and was group-hugging his wife and children. It wasn’t until he kissed Gina that Sam realized exactly what Jules had said.

I just wanted at least to be able to say goodbye properly.

Jules’s wanting to say goodbye properly had nothing to do with time, and everything to do with the fact that while Tarafashir was ruled by a U.S. approved monarch-slash-dictator, and while visiting Americans were treated with respect, the royal family and governing body was socially conservative, and homosexuality was illegal.

And that meant that even though Jules and Robin were lawfully wed in the state of Massachusetts, saying goodbye with a PDA more extreme than a handshake was likely to get them thrown into jail.

And that—a goodbye said with a handshake—was not okay with Sam.

Not while there was a chance—a slim one, but definitely a chance—that Jules wouldn’t return from this mission.

So Sam unloaded the car seats next to Max and Gina, who were still lost in their own private world, and he quickly kissed Alyssa on the mouth. “Don’t get on that plane until I get back.”

She laughed at that. “I won’t, because I’m not taking Ash to Afghanistan.”

“Good.” He grabbed Jules with one hand, and Robin with the other, and pulled them over toward the obvious international sign for the men’s head. The bathroom was a single-seater with a door that didn’t lock. Pushing it open, Sam saw that it was, at least, empty.

“Tech check,” he said to Jules, who nodded his understanding as he ushered Robin inside, closing the door tightly behind them.

Sam then stood in front of that door, arms folded across his chest, his message clear to everyone despite the potential language barrier: Find another bathroom. This one’s taken.

CHAPTER TWO

“Tech check?” Robin repeated, confused as Jules closed the men’s room door behind them.

No doubt Jules had understood Cowboy Sam’s cryptic message, because he was scanning the ceiling and the walls, and even looking along the concrete floor and behind the toilet that hadn’t been cleaned. Ever.

“No surveillance cameras,” he told Robin. “We’re good.”

“Ah.” Now he understood. And it seemed a shame to waste the privacy that Sam had conjured up for them, but there were things Robin needed to say. “I know I’m not supposed to tell you to be careful. I’m supposed to say be safe.”

“I will be,” Jules said as he pulled Robin into his arms. “Both as careful and as safe as I can manage.”

Which was great, but in reality, that might not be careful and safe enough to bring him home alive.

Two trips to Afghanistan ago, Jules had come perilously, heart-stoppingly close to coming home in a body bag.

One trip to Afghanistan ago, Robin didn’t eat or sleep the entire time that Jules was gone.

“I love you,” he managed to say now.

“I don’t have to do this,” Jules started to tell him, but Robin cut him off.

“Yeah, you do. And I’m gonna be okay. Sam and Gina need me to help with the kids. It’s going to be fun.”

Jules laughed. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Robin corrected himself. “It’s going to be as fun as it possibly can be.”

“Hmmm,” Jules said as he looked at Robin.

“Call me,” Robin said. “Or email. As often as you can.”

“I hate doing this to you. Putting myself in danger. It’s not worth—”

“Oh yes it is.” Robin cut him off. “It’s worth it. You’re worth it. You’re you. I love you for being you. Why would I want you to be anyone but who you are?”

Jules’s beautiful brown eyes welled with emotion. “God, I love you,” he whispered.

“Then kiss me, babe,” Robin said. “And then go get on that plane.”

And Jules did.

CHAPTER THREE

“I’m sorry, what?” Sam turned to look at Gina, who was the closest thing he had to a languages expert in his current six-person team.

It was a team that consisted of an eight-month-old, a one-year-old, a three-year-old, and two twenty-somethings who were hopelessly in love with their partners—partners who’d recently left for a war zone.

And that meant that Sam’s team’s major skill sets were eating, pooping, crying, and/or trying not to cry or otherwise appear worried so as not to frighten the super-short team members.

Of course, none of the short people were fooled by the badly hidden stress levels. Certainly not Emma, who was looking pale and was watching Sam glumly with those eyes that reminded him a little too much of her father.

Max had tried to hook up with Alyssa back when Sam was married to his first wife, Mary Lou, and … Or maybe it was Alyssa who’d tried to hook up with Max back when Max was trying desperately to keep his distance from Gina because she was nearly twenty years his junior.

It had all been a screaming charlie-foxtrot, and even though Sam had had no right to be jealous, considering he had been married to another woman at the time, seeing Max reminded him of that time of pain. And the fact that mini-Maxine here was the spitting image of her father was vaguely disturbing.

Yeah. This was going to be one long month—not counting the next apparently-destined-to-be-insanely-grueling twenty-four hours of ongoing travel.

“He said our flight’s been canceled due to …” Gina, who was possibly even paler than her daughter, repeated the heavily accented words uttered by the heavily accented man behind the World Airlines counter.

But it was Robin who understood the last part. “Weather,” he inserted. “The incoming flight from Tunisia’s been canceled—and that’s the plane we were supposed to leave on, so our flight’s been canceled, too. The next flight to Athens isn’t until … When?”

Gina leaned toward the counterman, her expression echoing Robin’s dismay. “I’m sorry, did you just say Thursday?”

It was Monday. Late Monday—almost Tuesday, but still, sadly, Monday.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” Robin’s voice went up an octave.

In Sam’s arms, Ash started to cry. He may not have understood all of the words, but he clearly got the tone. “Shhh,” Sam soothed him, automatically starting to rock. “We’re okay. It’s okay, Little Bit. We’ll figure this out.”

Meanwhile, Robin was getting taller, looming over the airline representative. “Oh, no,” he said. “No, no. No.” He was an actor, and was usually low-key, but in times of stress he was capable of going big with the drama. “Thursday? No. No, no. We’ll take your next flight. Tonight. To anywhere.”

“Pakistan,” the man said. To give him credit, he was trying to be helpful. But he was mostly clueless.

“Except there.”

“Libya?”

Gina made a guttural sound of intense pain. “Or there,” Robin said.

“Tomorrow morning,” the man told them in the lilting accent that Sam was starting to be able to understand, “we have a flight to Roma. At … six-oh-five.”

That was only seven hours away. And Rome was marginally closer to Athens. Sam spoke up. “We’ll take it.”

“But … alas, my friends, only two seats are available.”

Of course. “Please find the next flight with the number of seats that we need.” Sam forced himself to be patient and to not jump over the counter and look at the computer monitor himself.

“Two-seventeen P.M.,” the man said but his triumph quickly faded. “But, oh, that takes you back to London.”

“London works,” Robin said. He looked from Gina to Sam. “I was there just a few months ago. I know a great hotel where they’ll upgrade us to the presidential suite. I mean, if it’s not occupied. We can take a few days to decompress, take showers please God, get some sleep and some real food, and then, when we’re human again, we can get a direct flight to Athens.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Sam said.

“But we’ll need to get our luggage now,” Gina chimed in, “and the name of a safe hotel near this airport, where we can spend the night.”

Sam shook his head. “I know it’s not ideal,” he told her, “but it’s best if we just hunkered down—”

Gina was already shaking her head.

Sam lowered his voice, leaned toward her. “Gina, I know it’s not going to be easy to—”

“Oh, God.” Gina pivoted and thrust Mikey at Robin. “Take him, take him, take him. Emma, stay with Robin and Sam!”

As they all watched—Counterman was wide-eyed, too—Gina bolted for the ladies’ room. Halfway there, she realized she wasn’t going to make it, so she veered toward a trash can and …

A group of about a half a dozen monks had been walking serenely past, but now they all did a very sharp about-face and stepped up their pace, hustling away.

It was almost funny.

But Emma started to cry.

And Sam turned away. He had to. He was a sympathy vomiter—puking people were his kryptonite—and his last few badly cooked and too-greasy meals were flashing before his eyes. That cheeseburger, those onion rings … Holy f*ck, this was going to be bad.

But Robin knew Sam pretty damn well. “Let’s get the kids more mobile so I can go help Gina,” he said, morphing smoothly from outraged drama queen to calm, efficient team leader, as he handed Mikey off to Sam. “You focus on getting the luggage and some hotel recommendations from Mr. Mumbles.”

It was a good idea—at least the part in which Robin played nurse and Sam avoided playing nurse. He burped and tasted fish and chips. “We should stay here, in the airport,” Sam started to say, refreshing his grip on both babies.

“That’s not an option, Sam,” Robin said flatly as he expertly unfolded Gina’s double stroller. “Not anymore.”

This was going to be noisy. Ash was still in that cry-at-the-drop-of-a-hat place, and Mikey was in full-on pre-wail, having been passed from his mom to Robin to Sam, his mouth in that telltale infinity symbol shape of doom. Putting the boys into the stroller was going to detonate both of them. Guaranteed. But it would free up Sam’s hands, and he was going to need his hands while Robin’s were full of Gina.

“Have you seen those public bathrooms?” Robin continued. “Forget about the fact that there are probably laws forbidding men going into the ladies’ room, I am not letting Gina near that toilet. We need two rooms with two private bathrooms, preferably bed bug free but even that is negotiable at this point.”

Sam had to ask, “Is Gina …?” Pregnant again? He didn’t say it, but Robin understood.

He made an I honestly don’t know face as he helped Sam secure both Mikey and Ash with the stroller’s seat belts.

“Please God, don’t let it be the flu,” Sam muttered, and Robin actually laughed.

“Oh, wouldn’t that be great,” he said then raised his voice. “Emma, come here, pumpkin-girl. We’re gonna need you to push the scream-team in a big circle, around and around and around our luggage. Can you do that for me, buddy? So I can help your mommy with her tummy ache?”

Emma nodded, still sniffling. “My tummy hurts, too.”

“I know, baby,” Robin said soothingly. “We’re all tired and hungry and a little bit cranky. So why don’t you just rock ’em instead. Just back and forth, like this. Okay? And maybe you could sing them that song I taught you, remember …?”

“We’ll need our luggage,” Sam told the man behind the counter, raising his voice to be heard over Mike’s and Ash’s indignation, which was—hallelujah—fading a bit with Emma’s help.

The little girl was singing, “All the single ladies, all the single ladies …” and Sam turned to give Robin a really? look, but Robin was busy tying back Gina’s long, dark hair.

Sam swiftly turned back to the counterman. “And the names and numbers of the nearest hotels.”

“May I see your luggage tags, sir?”

Sam found his boarding pass and held it out so the man could see the sticker with the info about his checked bags.

The World Airlines rep’s fingers clicked on the keyboard, and then he made a sound that Sam didn’t want to hear.

It was an oh, and it was not a happy oh. It was, for sure, a bad news oh.

But the man tried to spin it. “It seems your luggage is still in London, sir. But that’s good, since you’re now going to London …?”

God damn it. Sam resisted the urge to put his head down on the counter. But there was one last option they hadn’t checked. “Can you look to see if there’s any other airline, with enough seats for all of us, flying out of Tarafashir tonight, preferably to Athens or London, but we’re open to other possiblities …?”

As the keyboard again clicked, Sam took out his phone and fired off a quick text to Alyssa, updating her as to their snafu.

But then Mikey and Ash’s chorus of woe kicked up a notch, and Sam looked over, just in time to see that Emma had stopped singing and rocking them. She stood there, silently staring at him, doing her mini-Max imitation.

And then she puked. She didn’t lean over, she didn’t otherwise move. She just opened her mouth and out it came, a volcano of nastiness—down her tiny shirt and little jeans, and all over her miniature sneakers.

And Sam knew even as he crushed his instinct to run away and instead leapt toward Emma, to try help the little girl …

It was the flu.

They were screwed.

Murphy.

The seventh member of Sam’s little team here in Goatf*cklandia was Mr. Murphy, whose written-in-stone law was clearly in play.

Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.

Emma threw up again, this time all over Sam’s jeans and boots.

Hoo-yah.

CHAPTER FOUR

Afghanistan

The helo ride to the first FOB had been bumpy.

Apparently there was a late spring snowstorm barreling its way into the mountainous region.

Jules was glad that their luggage had been lost because the jacket he’d packed wasn’t as warm as this replacement he’d been issued.

Alyssa, however, wasn’t as happy as she looked around at the bare bones facilities of the remote camp: the tents, the fort-like walls of the machine gun nests made of concrete and rubble, but mostly rubble.

The desolate, barren surrounding countryside …

“He’s gotta come here first,” Alyssa was telling Max and Commander Lewis Koehl. The CO of SEAL Team Sixteen, Koehl was in on this little recon mission, and three of his men had tagged along as slightly superfluous military might. “Not necessarily here here, but whichever operating base is the one that’s safest on the day that he arrives. He’s gotta land without a fanfare. No Air Force One. In fact, I’d recommend that Air Force One lands very publicly in Germany, to distract and misinform.”

“I agree,” Max said as Koehl, a man of relatively few words, nodded.

Alyssa continued. “Okay. So POTUS comes incountry on a regular military transport. He’s boots-on-the-ground for a nanosecond—less—before he goes directly into the gunship, which brings him out here. And he stays for the shortest amount of time possible.” She looked around again, shaking her head, and sighing again. “Even then …”

“With all the gunships providing additional security, not to mention the ones transporting the Secret Service detail and the press,” Jules pointed out, “we’ll be sending out a great, big We are here, attack us now.”

“There’s not going to be any press,” Alyssa said. “Not for this segment of the trip.”

“That’s good to know,” Jules said, then asked, “How come I didn’t know that?” He looked at Koehl, who seemed preoccupied, his mind a million miles away. “Did you know that, sir?”

Koehl nodded absently, looking at his watch.

“We limit the visit to five minutes,” Max decided. “Get him in and out.”

“Or limit the entourage to the size of a normal USO show,” Jules suggested. “With SEAL Team Sixteen riding shotgun. And just make sure we have Teams Six and Two locked, loaded, and ready to go, in case there’s trouble.”

“I say we recommend all of the above,” Alyssa said as the first flakes of snow drifted down from the pewter-colored sky.

“Excuse me, sir.” A burly red-haired SEAL officer who was nicknamed Big Mac approached Commander Koehl, but then made a point to acknowledge Alyssa, then Jules and Max. “Ma’am. Sirs. I’m sorry to interrupt, but we just got a message that the helo that was supposed to swing past and pick us up has been delayed.”

“Delayed,” Koehl repeated, suddenly fully alert.

“Yes, sir.” The big SEAL’s last name was MacInnough. What was his first name? Jules was drawing a blank.

Still, he met Alyssa’s eyes, because the subtext of that message was unmistakable. “Cat’s on the roof,” Jules said.

She smiled at his reference, but it was tight. “Apparently.”

“What’s on the where?” MacInnough—Alec, his name was Alec—asked as Koehl and Max stomped off to throw their rank and status against the inevitable.

“It’s a joke,” Jules explained. “A bad one that kind of sums up this delayed-helo situation. I heard it from Sam Starrett, so it’s Navy SEAL–approved.” He looked at Alyssa. “Should I tell it?”

She smiled, and in full favorite-thing mode, with the snowflakes on her nose and eyelashes, she looked more like a woman ready for a modeling shoot than one with a high-level security clearance and the ability to hit a target with a sniper rifle from ridiculous distances. “If I said no, would that stop you?”

“Probably not.” He turned to Alec. “Okay. Guy goes on vacation and asks his friend to house-sit, to feed his elderly cat while he’s gone. Coupla days in, he calls the friend to see how it’s going, and the guy goes, Oh, damn, I’m so, so sorry, dude, but your cat died. And the vacation guy gets upset, of course, I mean, his cat’s dead, and he says, What the hell, Gary—I guess I’ve named the house-sitter Gary. That’s not how you tell someone something like that. You ease into it, over the course of several days. Like when I call and say ‘How’s it going?’ you say, ‘Well, not great. The cat’s on the roof. I’m trying to get him down.’ And the next day, I call and you’re like, ‘Cat’s in the tree, now. I’m sorry, man, it’s looking bad.’ And only then, when I’m psychologically prepared for it, you drop the bomb and tell me the truth.”

The snow was coming down even harder now, and together they moved toward the main shelter where, yes, they’d be spending the night.

Oh, joy.

“Coupla days later,” Jules continued, “guy calls back, and Gary answers the phone, and the guy says, How’s it going? and Gary says, Not great. Your grandmother’s on the roof. Bah dump bump.”

“That,” Alec said, chuckling, “is awesome. And you are completely right. Helo’s delayed? The cat is, without a doubt, on the roof—because that helo’s not coming. Not today. And? FYI? Last time I was out here at this time of year, and we got weather like this …?”

“This is going to be great,” Jules told Alyssa, who actually laughed.

“It started as an ice storm, which knocked out all power and communications,” the SEAL informed them. “And then we got about three feet of snow on top of it. Total charlie-foxtrot. We were stuck here for nearly two weeks. They had to airlift in supplies.”

“Fantastic,” Jules said, as the skies opened up, not just with more snow, but with a very definite wintery-mix of icy rain.

They all ran the last few yards to the shelter, which was warmish and more dry, but smelled like summer camp: a cross between a wet yak and a boys’ locker room that hadn’t been aired out in a decade or two.

But it could’ve been worse.

There was coffee brewing, and as Jules pulled Alyssa with him toward the pot and collection of chipped mugs, Alec followed.

“How is Sam?” the SEAL asked.