Headed for Trouble

CHAPTER SIX

Alyssa was hurt. Badly.

As the dust settled around them, Jules had been able to tell with only a glance that her lower leg was broken.

She was tough, though, focusing on him, urgency in her voice. “Jules. Are you all right?”

“Yeah.” He was. It seemed impossible, so he checked himself again. He’d hit his head and his ears were ringing from the roar of the explosion, but he was, miraculously, all in one piece—no unwanted piercings of metal or chunks of stone protruding from him.

The man that the Neo-Nazis had left for dead was, indeed, dead on the floor, his head at an unnatural angle, his hair singed, his face burned from the blast.

Alyssa pulled herself into a sitting position. “The bomb?”

And that would be a second bomb to which she was referring.

“They set a timer for five minutes,” Jules reported as he ran his flashlight over it. “Four minutes and twenty-two seconds now.” Dang, but there was a lot of C4 attached to those blasting caps. He looked at the jerry-rigged thing more closely, wishing Jazz Jacquette were here. The XO of SEAL Team Sixteen wasn’t just a wizard when it came to blowing things up. He was also an expert in keeping bad things like this one from going boom.

“Which way is out?” Alyssa asked, still focused on the run-like-hell part of their plan. It had been a good idea—before complications such as broken legs and blasted-shut passageways had come into play.

Jules gave her the bad news point-blank, shining his flashlight onto the pile of rubble that had once been the way out of this shallow room just off the tunnel. “That way.”

“Plan B?” she asked.

“Grab some wires and pull?” he suggested.

She shifted herself closer, which had to have hurt her leg like hell. As Jules watched, she took note of the amount of explosives that the New Reich had left behind.

This was a tad surreal. Yes, there was a timer on the bomb, as Jules had expected. But he hadn’t considered the fact that if the NR was aiming to frame an Iranian group, to make it look as if said group adhered to fundamentalist crazy-ass thinking, then they would have to leave a “suicide bomber” behind.

A man that the NR leader addressed as Heinrich was that unlucky soul. One minute he’d been laughing and joking with the others as they’d set their bomb in place. The next, he’d been elbowed in the nose and kneed in the balls, and left retching and bleeding on the tunnel floor as his esteemed leader had placed a second, smaller bomb and run away. The det-cord on that piece of work had given the NR mere moments of lead time to run, but the amount of C4 had been far less. Still, the bomb had gone off with an earthshaking boom, caving in part of the tunnel, and effectively trapping them all here.

Not that the New Reich had known Jules and Alyssa were in here. No, their intention had been to trap old dead Heinrich. They’d probably already planted a Koran and a pledge to al-Qaeda in his apartment, for the authorities to find.

“Don’t pull that wire,” Alyssa warned Jules now. “Look—it’s booby trapped. If you pull it …”

“I won’t,” Jules said.

But shit. They had only three minutes and fifty-seven seconds.

“Okay,” he said, as the sound of machine-gun fire penetrated their enforced seclusion, as beside him, Alyssa tensed. “Here’s what we’re going to do …”

CHAPTER SEVEN

The firefight was over before it started.

The enemy, whoever they were with their f*cking swastika tattoos, couldn’t shoot for shit. Three were dead, and one was on his stomach, hands on his head in surrender, shitting his pants and crying like a baby.

“Take him to the surface,” Sam ordered Dave, because he didn’t quite trust that crazy Jimmy Nash and his K-bar would get the son-of-a-bitch up there alive.

Besides, Jim was already shouting for his freckle-faced fiancée. Damn. That was a match Sam didn’t really understand. It was like Little Mary Sunshine hooking up with Count Dracula. “Tess!”

The sound of machine-gun fire echoed from a distant tunnel—Sam could only hope it was Jenkins and Decker taking out whoever was jamming their radio frequencies.

“Jim!” That was Tess, shouting back. “I’m all right!” Sam shouted now, too. So much for needing the radio … “Is Alyssa with you?”

“No!”

“Alyssa and Jules were going to try to defuse the bomb.” Jesus. Lindsey Jenkins—Mark’s wife—was suddenly right there, in front of him, concern in her brown eyes. She was scary good at that ninja shit. “The second bomb,” she clarified.

Oh, good. There were two bombs …?

“So they hid near where they planted the box. Down this way,” she told him, and he followed her farther into the tunnel, Nash on his heels. She glanced at them over her shoulder. “The second bomb’s significantly bigger. I saw it as the tangos were carrying it in. It has a five-minute timer.” She looked at her watch. “A minute thirty-two left, and counting. Alyssa and Jules are trapped in with it.”

Once again, Sam kicked it up into a full-speed run. It didn’t take long for them to reach the spot. A haze of dust was still in the air from the recent blast. Debris filled the passageway, keeping Alyssa and Jules from getting free, keeping Sam from his wife.

“Get back,” he ordered as he shone his flashlight on the walls and ceiling. Structurally, the tunnel still seemed sound. But if there was a second bomb, even bigger …

“Fifty-seven seconds,” Lindsey announced as no one obeyed Sam. They all got to work and helped him dig—Nash and Lindsey and Tess and Sophia and Jenk and Decker—heaving the bigger stones and chunks of brick out of his way, using their bare hands to scoop away any loose dirt.

As Lindsey kept her countdown going, Sam felt sick because he knew he wasn’t going to make it, he wasn’t going to break through in time …

“Ten seconds,” Lindsey said, and he just kept digging. “Six … Five …”

Nash and Decker each took one of his arms and hustled him back to a safe distance, with the others. No …

“Three,” Lindsey said. “Two …”

“Please God, let Lindsey be wrong,” Sophia breathed the words they all were thinking.

“One,” Lindsey said.

Silence. And more silence.

Sam kept his eyes shut, not daring to hope …

Boom.

The blast was far noisier than it felt. It didn’t shake the ground or even rain dust and dirt on their heads. Of course, they weren’t trapped in a small area with it. His wife and best friend could well have just been turned into grease smears on the tunnel floor.

“Help me,” Sam said, his voice rough, as he again started to dig.

No one said a word. They just silently got to work. Dave was back by then, too, and he joined in. Please God, please God, please God, please God …

“I think I’m through,” Jenkins said, and sure enough, there was a small hole.

“Alyssa!” Sam shouted through it. He could smell smoke and … see light? There was light on the other side, and it wasn’t fire from the blast.

“Sam!” That was Jules’s voice. “Are you all right?”

Was he all right? “Yeah, is Alyssa with you?” Sam reached his hand through the hole, which was crazy—he should have been using it to keep digging. But, God, he just wanted contact.

“She’s here,” Jules told him—words that made him sag with relief. “She’s hurt, but she’s gonna be all right …”

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Thank God …”

Jules closed his eyes as he clasped Sam’s hand through the hole in the rubble. Thank God, indeed.

“How badly hurt?” Sam asked.

“Her leg’s broken,” Jules told him, “just above the ankle. I don’t want to move her. She’s back aways, along the far wall. It’s pretty smoky in here—we could both use some water …”

“Someone get me water,” Sam shouted from his side of the rubble.

“She’s very happy to hear your voice,” Jules told his friend. “We both are. Did you get ’em all? It was the New Reich, Starrett. There were at least ten of them—that we knew about. You need to be careful—they’re armed with—”

“We got ’em all,” Sam assured him. “How badly is Lys’s leg broken?”

“She’ll need a team of medics—a stretcher to get her out,” Jules told the former SEAL.

“I will not,” she shouted from across the dusty little room.

Sam laughed. “We’ll see about that.”

“I can hear you.”

“I love you,” Sam called to her. That shut her up.

“Any other casualties on our side?” Jules asked, bracing himself for bad news.

“Nothing serious,” Sam said the words both he and Alyssa were hoping to hear. “Jimmy Nash got what some folks might call cut, but what he calls a ding—a knife slice in the fleshy part of his arm. But everyone else is okay. Tess is going to bring Jim to the surface to meet the ambulances after we dig you out. Other than that … We’ve got guards posted, reinforcements and medics both on their way.”

“There’s a shitload of explosives in here,” Jules told him. “We couldn’t keep the bomb from going off, but we removed as much of the C4 from the timer as we could.” C4 was like putty—he and Alyssa had pretty much pulled the bomb apart, then put the part with the timer and the blasting caps as far away from them and the rest of the C4 as they possibly could. It had gone off with a percussive bang, but had done little damage.

“I’ve got some under my fingernails. I’m going to set off all kinds of alarms when I try to fly home.”

Sam laughed. “We’ll get you a special Navy SEAL manicure, but first let’s get you out of here,” he said. “Move back and just … sit tight.”

“Thanks, SpongeBob,” Jules told his friend.

“Thank you, for staying with Alyssa,” Sam said quietly.

“Like I’d leave her,” Jules scoffed.

“My point exactly,” Sam said. “You’re a good friend.”

And okay. Jules had to clear his throat repeatedly as he returned to Alyssa. And it wasn’t just from the dust and smoke that still hung in the air.

She was actually crying, which she rarely ever did, tears making streaks down her face.

“Hurts, huh?” Jules sat down next to her and gave her his hand to hold. Now that dying was off the table, he knew she was starting to feel as if she had a broken leg.

She took his hand. Yow. She had some grip there.

“Actually,” she told him, “I’m feeling really good.” Jules nodded.

“You know what I want?” he said, answering the question that she’d asked just moments before the second bomb had gone off. “I want what you have with Sam. I want someone who won’t freak out when I have a night like tonight. I want trust and respect and … I want someone who’ll say I love you in front of a crowd of co-workers and friends.”

She wiped her face as she laughed. “Yeah, that’s pretty nice to hear, huh?”

“Yes, it is,” Jules said. “I want to meet someone,” he continued, “and not think … maybe. I want to meet him, I want to look into his eyes, and think, Yes. I don’t want to have to wonder. I want to know, right away, that he’s the one.”

Alyssa was silent. “Unfortunately, sweetie, life’s not a Disney cartoon,” she finally said.

Jules laughed. “No shit, Cinderella.”

She looked at him. “You know, when I first met Sam … Jules, sometimes you meet someone, and you think, Please God, not him.”

She laughed, but Jules was silent. He knew, too well, what that was like …

“And then,” Alyssa continued, “you go from no, to maybe … And then, eventually to yes. After, you know, you force yourself to admit that you might’ve been wrong about him.”

“What if you’re not wrong?” Jules asked her quietly. “What if you know that he can crush your heart and … destroy you?”

She brought his hand to her mouth and kissed him. She knew full well that he wasn’t talking about Ben. He was talking about Robin—the one man he’d been unable to forget.

Jesus, it had been years since Jules had so much as seen Robin, and he was still thinking, Please God, not him …

“Then you settle for the maybe that you’ve got right now,” Alyssa told him gently. “Ben may not be able to tell you that he loves you, not in front of his Marines, but … that could change. The same way that the maybe you’re feeling could change to a full-throttle yes. And if it doesn’t … Well, at least you tried, right?”

“Tried what?” Sam appeared in front of them—having dug his way through the rubble, probably by chewing it into molecules with his teeth. He was covered with dust, and was sweaty as hell, but he kissed Alyssa on the mouth. “What are we talking about?” he asked as he handed each of them a bottle of water, then turned his full attention to Alyssa’s broken leg. He didn’t cut her pants leg open, probably because he could see it was holding the broken bone in place.

Jules knew right then that Sam was eager to get Alyssa out of there—he didn’t want to wait for the medics to arrive.

“I was just telling Lys that I’m going to sign up for one of those ex-gay camps and then steal her away from you,” Jules told him.

Sam looked up at him askance. “That shit doesn’t work.”

“I know. I’m kidding,” Jules said. He looked at Alyssa. “Sam loses his sense of humor when you almost die.”

“Besides, Squidward,” Sam spoke over him as he gently lifted Alyssa into his arms, careful not to jar her injury, “we like you just the way you are.”

“Told you I wasn’t leaving here on a stretcher,” Alyssa said as her husband carefully carried her out.

Leaving Jules alone with his doubts—his unsatisfactory maybes.

And wasn’t that the way the story always ended? He was like that guy in that old song—alone again, naturally.

But then Sam gave a shout from out in the tunnel. “Cassidy. Move your ass. We’re waiting on you.” In the romance department, Jules’s life may have been a maybe, but as far as his friends went, Jules had himself a rock-solid yes.

“I’m right behind you, SpongeBob,” Jules shouted back, then followed his two best friends out of the tunnel and up into the clean, crisp, star- and promise-filled night.

Maybe he could live for a while with maybe.

At the very least, it was worth a try.





CONVERSATION WITH NAVY SEALS MARK “JENK” JENKINS, DAN GILLMAN, JAY LOPEZ, AND IRVING “IZZY” ZANELLA


2006

This story is set shortly after Into the Storm.

IZZY: (coming into the room) Was too.

GILLMAN: (following him, along with Jenk and Lopez) Was not.

IZZY: Was too.

GILLMAN: Was not.

JENK: Guys. Knock it off. Seriously. Don’t piss Suz off. She’ll be in here any second.

IZZY: I’m not afraid of her. She’s just a writer.

LOPEZ: (exchanging a look with Jenk) Just a writer. She’s our writer.

IZZY: Dude, I make her laugh. She likes me.

LOPEZ: Look, if you want my advice, don’t do anything to catch her attention. I mean, yes, it worked out well for Jenkins. He got his happy ending in this latest book, but …

JENK: What if she decides you’re the next Sam Starrett?

LOPEZ: Five, count ’em, five books of torment. You definitely don’t want that. So just do what I do. Don’t say too much. Just hang in the background, steady and reliable. (Puts his fingers to his lips) Shhhh.

GILLMAN: But on the flip side, what does that get you? You’re, like, number twenty on her list of heroes for upcoming books.

JENK: Here’s how you know you’re gonna be the hero of her next book. Ready for this? (They nod.)

JENK: You stop having sex.

GILLMAN: (laughing) What? No way.

JENK: Yeah. No more flings, no more two-weekers, and definitely no one-nighters. You gotta earn the right to find your soulmate, and the first thing that vanishes is the urge to tomcat. It’s kind of weird actually.

IZZY: So, in other words, you meet some gorgeous woman at a bar and she lets you know she’s available, and you end up going home early and watching American Idol on TV, alone in your apartment?

JENK: Pretty much.

GILLMAN: God, you scared me for a minute there. I thought you meant that you stop having sex entirely. Like forever. I mean, I thought that was the point of being the hero in a romance novel. You meet this woman who’s perfect for you and then you have a lot of sex and get married at the end.

JENK: Yeah, except for the internal conflict, which is a total pain in the ass. And except for the part where you don’t really have a lot of sex. You have great sex, but it can’t really be defined as a lot until the book ends. I mean, these are romantic suspenses—there’s a lot of plot.

LOPEZ: Like I said. Shhhh. I’m dating someone right now that Suz doesn’t even know about. I want to keep it that way. It’s a comfortable arrangement, no crises, no conflict. Much better than getting caught up in a five-book story arc like Starrett was.

IZZY: (uneasy) So how do you know if Suz is planning to toss you into one of those story arcs? I mean, shit. We were all major characters in Into the Storm.

GILLMAN: Obviously, Jenk’s safe. But damn, I could be in serious trouble. I’ve got a major crush on Sophia Ghaffari.

IZZY: (scoffing) Yeah, like you’re going to be the hero of her book. Two words. Dream on, fool.

GILLMAN: Two words—

JENK: Guys. Stop.

LOPEZ: I know I’m not the hero of the next book because Minnie’s cooking dinner for me right now.

IZZY: Minnie?

LOPEZ: Shhh. I shouldn’t have said her name. Bad karma.

GILLMAN: Someone light a match.

IZZY: (to Lopez) You’re actually dating a woman named Minnie?

JENK: (to Gillman) He didn’t fart, he just said her name.

GILLMAN: I thought it might help.

LOPEZ: Make fun of me all you want, Zanella. You just wish you were getting some of her manicotti tonight.

GILLMAN: (cracking up) I’ve heard it called a lot of things …

IZZY: Back on topic. This story arc thing …

JENK: I think you’re in trouble if you appear in a book, and you’re not the hero, but you’re something that Suz calls a point of view character.

IZZY: What the f*ck is that?

LOPEZ: It’s like Sam Starrett in The Defiant Hero and Over the Edge. Part of the story is told from his point of view, like he’s describing what’s happening in those particular scenes.

JENK: Only he’s not the hero of those books, like I was in Into the Storm.

GILLMAN: I think I’m safe.

LOPEZ: Me too.

(They look at Izzy.)

IZZY: I’m totally f*cked. In the really not good way.

SUZ: (entering the room) Hey, guys. Thanks for dropping by today. I’m sorry to do this to you, but I really only have about two minutes. I’m doing an online chat, and I’ve got to run, but—

IZZY: Am I your next Sam Starrett?

SUZ: Well, Izzy, you know there’s really only one Sam Starrett, so—

IZZY: You know what I mean. Am I in one of those story arc things? Five books of torment …?

SUZ: Let’s just say that I have plans for all of you. I don’t want to make you any promises, because it could turn out to be seven books of torment and then you’ll be mad at me. Madder. (to Lopez) Hey, Jay, how’s Minnie? I heard she just got a terrific job offer in New York City.

LOPEZ: Ah, crap.

SUZ: Oh, come on. Don’t you want excitement and passion? Don’t you want to fall in love with that one person that you absolutely can’t live without?

LOPEZ: I kind of liked manicotti and clean laundry.

SUZ: Don’t be a baby. Learn to cook and buy a washer and dryer. (to Jenk) Are you happy? Tell them how happy you are.

JENK: I am almost insanely happy.

SUZ: (to the others) See? I gotta run. Later, guys. Thanks again for stopping by.

IZZY: (calling after her) But Jenk didn’t have five books of … (to Jenk, because she’s gone) What does five books translate to, time-wise?

JENK: Two, three years. But I’m pretty sure she was looking right at you when she said it was going to be seven books of torment.

GILLMAN: (to Izzy) Dude, you’re screwed.

IZZY: Well … you are, too.

GILLMAN: No, I’m not.

IZZY: Yeah, you are.

GILLMAN: Not like you.

JENK: Guys. Stop. (He closes the door tightly behind them.)