Do or Die Reluctant Heroes

Phoebe learned quite a bit in the hours immediately following her prison meeting with Martell Griffin and Ian Dunn.

First, she discovered that processing the release of a prisoner took several hours—which was actually much faster than she’d expected.

Second, she found out that Martell’s need to rescue those kidnapped kids was deeply personal and heartfelt.

He’d told her that he was good friends with a man who ran a Sarasota personal security firm called Troubleshooters Incorporated—a man who’d been assigned not to protect those kids, but to analyze and write a recommendation for upgrades to the security team currently being used to protect them. Ironically, he’d been in Miami, doing a ride-along with the Vaszko children and their bodyguards when the kids had been grabbed in a brazen daylight attack that left their two guards dead and Martell’s friend Ric seriously wounded.

Shot in the chest, Martell had told Phoebe when they’d first left the prison interview room, as he’d gone through his phone, searching in vain for messages about Ric’s status. He’d then told Phoebe that he’d hoped to have a voice mail or text waiting for him from Ric’s wife, but there was nothing.

No word.

Which was not good.

Martell had been deep inside of his own head, in his own private unhappy world, so Phoebe had left him pacing in the prison parking lot. She’d spent the bulk of the wait for Dunn’s release researching the former SEAL in the air-conditioned comfort of the Northport Coffee Shack.

Where she’d learned quite a few additional interesting things—not the least of which was a wealth of information about Navy SEALs.

Phoebe had heard a lot of buzz about SEALs since the death of Usama bin Laden. She’d assumed the SEALs were merely the Navy’s version of the Green Berets or Delta Force. But SEALs weren’t your everyday, ordinary commandos, they were super-commandos. Apparently, the training that they underwent was the most challenging and rigorous in the entire military. In fact, it was so intense that the vast majority of SEAL candidates dropped out. Only the best of the best made it through the program.

And Ian Dunn had, at one time, been one of them.

He’d joined the Navy as an enlisted man, but during his ten years of service, he’d not only gotten his college degree, but he’d also crossed over into officer’s territory by attending something called OCS—Officer Candidate School. By the time he’d left, he was a lieutenant and a SEAL team leader.

And that was another thing she’d discovered—that SEALs always, always worked in teams. Which made her wonder: Where was Ian’s team? If, after leaving the Navy, he’d indeed become a thief of international renown, surely he hadn’t done it by suddenly, uncharacteristically pulling a Rambo, and working alone.

So Phoebe had dug deeper, exploring, searching.

She’d found no mention of Ian’s mysterious teammates, but she uncovered what seemed to be quite the urban legend about him on more than one military discussion board.

The rumor, at least in the SpecOp or SEAL community, was that Ian Dunn gave away most of what he stole in his varied and apparently frequent heists. He only kept enough for operating expenses. And supposedly, the vast majority of the jewelry and artwork he quote-unquote liberated, was already stolen or otherwise ill-gotten gains. Nazi treasure. Fortunes made from war profiteering, or from the blood and tears of orphaned slaves.

But not everyone on those Internet boards considered Dunn a hero. One anonymous poster claimed that when Dunn had left the SEAL teams, he’d cut ties and hadn’t looked back.

That same anonymous person, jackal99, pointed out that the SpecWar community was made very uncomfortable whenever a highly trained, highly skilled SEAL went rogue. It happened. Rarely, apparently, but it did happen.

“We all wince and start to sweat a little,” this alleged former SEAL wrote, “because we know what Dunn’s capable of. So we pretend that he’s working for the good guys, and the discomfort caused by his being out there is easier to deal with.”


It was fascinating.

But, without a doubt, the most interesting thing Phoebe found was a tiny little article that popped up when, on a whim, she did a Google search comprised of the month and year of Dunn’s legendary—and alleged—embassy heist, and the words Nazi treasure.

According to this article, just a few short days after the burglary at the Kazbekistani embassy in Istanbul, the Los Angeles–based Simon Wiesenthal Center received a mysterious delivery of a package filled with priceless jewelry, believed to have been stolen by the Nazis during the Holocaust. The organization was working to identify the pieces and track their original owners, to see if there were any surviving family members or descendants.

So, yes, that had been an informative few hours.

But then Martell had texted, letting her know that Ian Dunn’s release was imminent, so she’d packed up her computer and headed back to the prison.

Martell was right where she’d left him, wearing out his shoes, worrying about his friend.

As Phoebe parked her new car in the mostly empty lot, his cell phone was to his ear. She gave him a questioning look as she climbed out into the heat of the day, not wanting to interrupt.

In response, he grimly shook his head, and mouthed the words Nothing yet.

There was no way he was going to get news of his friend’s death via anything other than direct communication. So this was a case of no news being extremely bad news.

And, oh God, now, as Phoebe watched, Martell’s shoulders slumped and he leaned back against his own car, his hand up over his eyes. His long, elegant fingers massaged his forehead as he murmured something inaudible into his phone.

Phoebe sidled a little closer and … Thank God?

Yes, that was definitely a Thank God, and then, “Give him a big, wet kiss for me, and tell the dickhead that I’m working my ass off to clean up his mess for him.” Martell managed to laugh, even as he wiped his eyes and said, “No, seriously, Annie. Tell Ric not to worry. I can’t tell you who I’m working with, but we’re on our way to finding those kids. Tell him we will get them back. He needs to concentrate on healing. Yeah.” He ended the conversation with an “Aight,” and then a “Yeah, been there, done that. Believe me, I’ll be careful. Love you, too.”

“Your friend’s okay,” Phoebe surmised.

“Gonna be,” Martell told her as he checked his email and text messages one more time before pocketing his phone. “Gonna be a long road back. But if I could do it, he can, too.”

Had she just misheard what he’d said? “You … were shot?”

“Just like Ric. Point-blank in the chest.” He put a hand against his tie. “A few years ago. It was something of a surprise when it happened.”

“Oh my God.”

“Usually when you encounter the business end of a handgun, there’s some, well, foreplay, if you’ll excuse the expression. A conversation, at least. A little Hello, how are you, and yes, this is a loaded weapon, thanks for noticing. But this wasn’t your everyday, average mugging. I’d interrupted an abduction in progress.”

“Were you out of uniform?” Phoebe asked, because, jeez, for someone to just shoot a cop …

“I wasn’t a uniformed officer,” Martell told her. “I was a detective. But this happened after I’d left. In fact, it was after I passed the bar. Most people think it’s why I left the force, but it’s not.”

“I wasn’t thinking that,” Phoebe said.

“Yeah, you were,” he said. “But it’s okay. Like I said, everyone does.”

What she’d been thinking was that Martell was so … healthy. Tall, and handsome, and self-assured. And, yes, unafraid. Phoebe wouldn’t’ve faulted him one bit if, after an assault like that, he’d quit his dangerous job as a police detective and stayed hidden in the safety of the shadows, flinching at every loud noise.

Of course, maybe he was like her and walked around packing heat, and fully trained in self-defense. In fact, the first thing she’d done after leaving the prison earlier this morning was to move her Glock from the lockup in her trunk and back into her shoulder bag, where it usually lived.

Across the pitted, dusty, and barely graveled parking lot, the barbed-wire-topped inner prison gate began to creak slowly open, and Phoebe shaded her eyes to get a better look. But the outer gate remained tightly shut, which made sense.

The entrances to the prison—even the one for visitors, over on the other side of the complex—were designed like the doors in that ancient TV show Get Smart. Before the second door opened, the first shut, guaranteeing that there could never be a direct mass rush for freedom, even in the unlikely case of the prisoners overpowering the guards and gaining control of the security grid.

This gate here was essentially the service entrance. This was where prisoners came to be processed, and after serving their time and repaying their debt to society—assuming that was even possible—they were spit back out, into the harshness, heat, and dusty parking lot of the real world.

“You ready for this?” Martell asked Phoebe. “He’s not going to be a happy camper, and it’s imperative that we don’t lose him.”

She glanced at him, startled. “He’s not wearing a tracker on his ankle?”

“Nope.” Martell gave her a tight smile. “Can’t risk it.”

“Wow,” she said. “You’re more of a gambler than I thought.”

He laughed, but it was humorless. “Yeah, I kinda went all in.”

Phoebe chose her words carefully. “You know, Dunn may not be willing to do this job. He might decide to just disappear,” she pointed out, as the inner gate creaked closed, locking with a bang that made the entire compound seem to shudder. “It’s been my experience that alienation, anger, and betrayal aren’t usually the start of a beautiful friendship.”

“I don’t need Dunn to be my friend,” Martell said tightly. “In fact, it’ll help enormously if he decides to rob the consulate at the same time that he’s saving the Vaszko kids. Further proof that the U.S. had nothing to do with the rescue mission.”

“I don’t think he’s really a jewel thief.” Phoebe told the other lawyer a bit of what she’d just uncovered. “I mean, most of what I found out is at least part urban legend, true, but I think it would be a good idea if we viewed some of the so-called facts as, well, potential misinformation.”

The look Martell gave her would have been funny, if lives weren’t at stake. “So what are you saying?” he asked. “That Ian Dunn’s, like, what? Batman?”

“More like Robin,” Phoebe said, adding, “Hood.”

Martell was not impressed. His laugh was more of a scoff. “I’m pretty sure Robin Hood’d be on board for saving two little kids.”

“Not if whatever he was doing in prison was more important,” Phoebe volunteered. “Maybe his current mission will save more lives—like, hundreds or thousands.”

Now Martell was looking at her as if she were full-on insane. “His current mission in prison is to pay for the damage done while playing Demolition Derby in a bar parking lot during a drunken temper tantrum.”

Phoebe shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But this is not a man who has a drunken temper tantrum. As far as I can tell, Ian Dunn doesn’t touch alcohol.”


“Because if he does, he gets ’faced and ends up destroying private property,” Martell argued. “Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of it.”

“You’ve met him,” Phoebe said. “Is this really a man who staggers out of a bar, gets into his car, and intentionally crashes into more than a dozen parked vehicles? Because some woman refused to dance with him? I just can’t see him doing that.”

“Alcohol does strange things to some people. He pled guilty.”

“Exactly. I think he was in prison because he wanted to be in prison,” Phoebe told Martell. “And I think you pulling him out like this is a big mistake. I think it’s likely that a lot of people are going to be pissed off, particularly when your government client has an a-ha moment and its right hand discovers what its left has been doing.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “You think Dunn is already working for the feds.”

Phoebe nodded. “I think it’s entirely possible.”

Martell remained unconvinced. “Look, I’m just doing what I need to do to get this job done. If Dunn’s such a big hero like you say, then he’ll help us save these kids. And if he isn’t … Well, he’s going to help us whether he wants to or not.”

“Okay,” Phoebe said. “Assume I’m wrong. Completely. He’s a criminal with a single motive—to make himself rich. I still don’t understand how you can be so convinced that Dunn is going to go from No deal to Thank you for the beating, my government master. How next may I please you? in a matter of a few short hours.”

Martell laughed at her bad Igor imitation. “He won’t want to please me,” he told her. “But he’ll have to.”

Now she looked at him through narrowed eyes. “What haven’t you told me? What’s not in my copy of Dunn’s file, that I also didn’t find today on the Internet?”

“Have you ever heard of Manny Dellarosa?”

Phoebe squinted. “That name is … not completely unfamiliar.”

“The Dellarosas are a local mob family. They run drugs, up out of Clearwater, north of Tampa. They also dabble in prostitution, human trafficking, gambling, and the random chop shop. They own two legit businesses—a trucking company and a series of warehouses scattered across the state—mostly to launder their ill-gotten gains.

“Manny’s the boss,” Martell continued. “His brother Davio is his second in command; Davio’s son Berto is also involved. There’s a fourth Dellarosa—Vincent. Manny’s son. But he’s the family screwup. His job seems to be to spend their money, to get into trouble, and then run to Daddy for help.”

“And Ian Dunn is connected to them how?” Phoebe asked.

“A year ago, Dunn tried to frame Vincent for the very crime for which he’s serving time. That couldn’t have made Daddy Dellarosa happy, and in the end—presumably after pressure was applied—Dunn ended up pleading guilty to all charges.”

And that was why the name Dellarosa was familiar. Vincent Dellarosa was on the lengthy list of people whose cars were damaged by Dunn, outside of that bar.

“I didn’t see a copy of the police report,” Phoebe admitted. “As far as I could tell, from the moment our firm was involved, Dunn’s goal was to plead guilty, pay retribution, and accept responsibility, all in exchange for a lighter sentence.”

“Whatever went down,” Martell countered, “it had to create tension between Dunn and the Dellarosas, right? So fast-forward to today, where Vince, the black sheep son, is currently awaiting trial for murder, over in Orlando.”

“Seriously?” Phoebe asked.

Martell nodded. “Trouble is that young man’s middle name. Here’s where this works to our advantage: Daddy and Uncle Davio Dellarosa are going to hear about Ian Dunn’s early release from prison, and think that he traded information for his freedom.” He smiled tightly at Phoebe as an alarm bell finally rang and the outer gate slowly opened. “Especially when, whoopsie-daisy, we leak information that Dunn’s going to be a star witness at Vincent’s impending trial.”

“But … Wait. Doesn’t this mean that Dunn’s going to be targeted by the Dellarosas?” Phoebe asked.

“In theory,” Martell said happily. “I don’t know this for sure, but if there is a God, then, yes, the Dellarosas are gonna come for Dunn, guns blazing. And that, my dear Ms. Kruger, is the reason he’s gonna agree to help us. Because we’ll keep him safe, and then we’ll keep him hidden until after Vince’s trial is over. He refuses to help us, then he’s on his own.”

This was going to be interesting.

Phoebe liked Martell. She really did. He was intelligent and funny and extremely easy on the eyes, with his broad shoulders, handsome face, and quick smile. But she suspected he’d seriously miscalculated this situation, thinking for even one slice of a second that Ian Dunn would need or want anyone’s help; that he wouldn’t prefer to be left to himself, to go deep into hiding until the threat from the Dellarosa family—if there even was a threat—was past.

And there he was. The former prisoner, now an official ex-con. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, clunky black boots on his feet. He carried a hooded sweatshirt and a plastic grocery sack that probably held the few personal items he’d had with him in his cell.

He stood there, just looking at them, long after the gate had opened wide enough for him to slip through.

But he didn’t move.

And he didn’t move.

He looked from Phoebe to Martell and back, and shook his head, just very slightly, as if they were unruly children who’d bitterly disappointed him.

And if only half of what Phoebe had discovered over the past few hours was true … they’d put him in some serious danger, and potentially screwed up whatever mysterious mission he was currently on.

Martell spoke first, turning to unlock his car with a click and a whoop of his aging antitheft system. “Come on, Dunn. I’ll drive you to a hotel. You’ll be safe there. You can take a shower, get something to eat while we talk.”

The sound of his voice seemed to unpin Dunn’s feet from where they were planted in the dusty ground, and he finally came through the gate, his stride as loose and easy as it had been when he’d walked into the prison interview room. “Yeah, no, I think I’ll catch a ride with my cute new lawyer.”

Martell laughed and purposely repeated Dunn’s words. “Yeah, no, I don’t think so.”

“You know, maybe that would be a good idea,” Phoebe told Martell. Not only would this prove to Dunn that she was not afraid of him, but it would give them a chance to talk privately. Not that she’d necessarily be able to share anything she learned with Martell, considering client-attorney privilege. Still, she might find out exactly what was going on. As in, who was this Conrad that Dunn had asked about, back in the interview room. She didn’t believe his mutual acquaintance explanation for one hot second.

“Feel free to follow,” Dunn told Martell. “After Pheebs and I talk we’ll stop and all have lunch.”

And that was when Phoebe should have realized that something was up. For him to have gone from a cold No deal, back in the prison, to a friendly Feel free to follow, we’ll all have lunch was completely ridiculous.


But the reasonableness and ease with which Dunn spoke those words fooled her, and she turned and opened the driver’s side door of her new car.

Phoebe’s shiny new car—a gift to herself for nailing the job at BH&S—had a keyless entry that she adored. She no longer had to dig to find her car keys at the bottom of her bag; she just had to touch the handle, and her car door would unlock. Likewise, she just had to toss her bag onto the passenger seat, and the car would sense the presence of the nearby key, and start with a touch of a button.

It was fabulous.

After she unlocked her car, she climbed in behind the wheel. The door hung open as she focused on balancing her bag on the armrest between the two front seats and clearing the wrappings from a quickly grabbed breakfast off the passenger seat to make room for her newest client.

And this meant that she was completely surprised by what Dunn did next.

He moved inside of the open car door, and she sensed more than saw his sweatshirt and plastic sack of God-knows-what whizzing past her head as he threw it into the back, as almost simultaneously he put his left hand beneath her thigh, and his right hand between her lower back and the seat.

“Hey!” Phoebe heard herself say as he seemingly effortlessly lifted her up and tossed her over the armrest. She landed butt-first in the passenger seat, her feet tangling with the steering wheel only briefly, because he was there to help her get them free.

Her surprise was echoed by Martell, who shouted, “Dunn! Stop! What the hell!” from the parking lot.

But Ian Dunn was already behind the wheel, door closed and locked, car started and in motion.

“I’ll drive, okay?” he said in that very same reasonable, friendly voice, as he peeled away from Martell, a spray of dust and gravel making the other man turn away to protect his eyes.

“No, it is not okay!” Phoebe watched out of the back window as Martell sprinted for his own car, no doubt to give chase.

“Better fasten your seatbelt,” Dunn told her calmly as he gunned it out of the lot and onto the equally ill-repaired road.

“This is exceedingly not okay,” Phoebe said as she belted herself in, reaching to pull her bag up from the floor, where it had fallen when she’d been jettisoned from the driver’s seat. “In fact, this fits the definition of felony kidnapping!”

“Not if you tell me it’s okay if I drive,” Dunn pointed out, glancing at her as he adjusted the seat, pushing it all the way back, as far as it could go. Even then his legs were clearly too long, and he shifted to get as comfortable as he could.

“I am not going to tell you it’s okay if you drive,” she sputtered, even as she reached one hand into her bag, feeling for … “It’s my car, and I was driving, and you physically accosted me, which makes it—”

“Kidnapping,” he finished for her. “I get it. So have me arrested and send me back to prison. Oh, wait. That’s exactly what you don’t want to do.”

“Stop this car,” she said, aiming her handgun at him, right through the leather of her bag. “Right now, Mr. Dunn, or I will shoot.”

She had to admit that it must’ve looked ridiculous, like she was only pretending she had a weapon and was in fact doing nothing more than pointing her finger at him. But she knew that getting the Glock out of the bag would mean temporarily not aiming it at him—during which time he could easily take it from her. Even while driving. He was, after all, a former Navy SEAL.

Dunn looked from her face to the bag and back into her eyes before he returned his attention to the road, even as he shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “You’re not going to shoot me. I mean, seriously, Pheeb, if you were really going to do that, you would’ve pulled the trigger before I got the car up to speed. You do it now, you’ll probably die, too, you know, in the fiery crash? But if it makes you feel better—more in control—by all means, keep your weapon”—he made quotation marks with his fingers even as he held on to the steering wheel with the palms of his hands—“securely aimed at me.”

“What is wrong with you?”

Dunn glanced at her again and sighed. “For starters, my mother was sixteen when I was born, my father barely older. He already had a criminal record which made it impossible to find work, so he got in too deep with a gang of total, well, a*sholes, if you’ll pardon my French. There’s no other word for them, at least not less offensive. Anyway, that nearly killed him, but it didn’t quite, so now he was a one-legged ex-con—yeah, that sucked—who really couldn’t find a job, so when I was three, he trained me to gain entry of houses through doggy doors—”

“That’s not what I meant,” Phoebe interrupted, but then interrupted herself. “When you were three?”

“Well, three and a half,” Dunn said as if that were better.

“God! That’s child abuse.” She caught herself. He was trying to distract her. “What I meant was …” She took a deep breath and rephrased. “There’s just no way someone in your alleged position wouldn’t be grateful to be released early. Therefore you had a reason to want to stay in, which I really hope you will share with me, so I can work with you, and whichever agency you’re working for, to find a solution for this problem with Mr. Griffin.”

He’d adjusted the rearview mirror, and was now fixing the ones on the sides as well. He seemed to be a very good driver, except for the fact that he was going much too fast.

“I’m not working for any agency,” he said, completely unapologetically. “Good guess, but no. You’re wrong about that. I can’t tell you anything more. If I did, well, I’d have to kill you.”

He spoke the words so casually, as if he were joking, his eyes on the road in front of them. But just the same, Phoebe knew he meant it at least as a partial threat. An intentional reminder that he was a dangerous man, regardless of the fact that she was the one in possession of a weapon.

“No, you wouldn’t have to,” she told him, choosing not to let his statement go unchallenged. “As your lawyer, you can tell me anything.”

He glanced at her again. “You’re not my lawyer.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

This was petty. And childish. “Yes, Mr. Dunn, I am.”

“Really?” he asked. “We’re going to keep this up? Because you’re not my lawyer, Jerry is.”

“I don’t have anything else to do while being abducted,” she pointed out. “Except defend the fact that, yes, while Mr. Bryant is unavailable, I am your attorney. At least slow down so Mr. Griffin can follow us more easily.”

“It’s not a fact, because I never agreed to it.” Dunn didn’t slow down.

“Yes, you did,” she countered. “You called me your cute new lawyer in the parking lot.”

“That was bullshit,” he said with another glance at her. “Not the cute part, the lawyer part. You’re very cute. But bullshit doesn’t count.” He added, “I do have something else to do right now. I need to use your phone.”

She hugged her bag more tightly to her chest. “Am I or am I not your lawyer?” she asked, adding, “No bullshit this time.”

Dunn actually laughed. “You’re freaking kidding me.”

“If you’re my client, Mr. Dunn, you can use my phone,” she told him as matter-of-factly as she could manage. “If you’re my kidnapper, you can’t.”


* * *

“This is not okay!” Martell shouted at the ass-end of Phoebe’s zippy new car as he waddled down the road after them in his ancient and ailing POS.

He’d had the money for a new car, and he’d had the make and model of the shiny all picked out. But then his sister’s youngest son had gotten sick. And while the hospital bills were covered—hallelujah—the time that Denise spent at Jamie’s bedside during his chemotherapy had resulted in her losing her job. Martell’s brother-in-law had been ready to get a second job to keep their mortgage paid, but that would’ve meant he’d never see his child during what might well be Jamie’s last few months on earth. So Martell stepped in. His new car could wait.

He’d been karmically rewarded by the boy’s improved health. Even though Jamie wasn’t out of the woods, his cancer was shrinking in response to his treatment. Martell thought of him—and prayed for him—whenever he drove his piece-of-shit anywhere. And he drove around a lot. Because he worked for himself, he used his car as a rolling office. He damn near lived in the thing.

But it did what he needed it to do, got him where he needed to go. He was, after all, a lawyer now. Car chases, like this one, were no longer a part of his job description.

At least that’s how it should have been.

“Son of a bitch!”

This was all Ric’s fault, and now that his longtime friend was no longer kicking at death’s door, Martell could properly put blame where blame was needed.

Although the hard truth was that this situation was his own sorry fault.

“Just say no,” he shouted in frustration as Ian Dunn took a sharp left and Phoebe’s car vanished from his line of sight. “Why can’t I learn to just say no?”

By the time he got down there and made that same left, sure enough, the other car had already disappeared. But this was the way to the interstate—there was no question that that was where Dunn was heading. North or south, though, that was the big mystery.

Martell pulled over to the side, his AC wheezing as it tried to keep the air in the car below eighty degrees. Tried and failed. He unlocked his cell phone and scrolled through his list of contacts. He found Phoebe’s cell number and dialed.

It rang once, twice, three times, but she didn’t pick up, and she didn’t pick up, and it finally went to voice mail.

“This is Martell Griffin. Call me when you get this,” he said, just barely managing to squeeze out a “please,” before he hung up. This wasn’t her fault.

And she was the guy’s lawyer. He wouldn’t hurt her. Martell hoped. He called her home phone—she’d given him that, too, back when she’d surprised him by showing up at the prison this morning. He left the same message, then briefly shut his eyes as he forced himself to breathe and to remember that Ian Dunn hadn’t been convicted of a crime in which anyone had been injured. Despite the damage he’d done to the cars parked outside of that bar, he wasn’t known for having a temper—in fact the opposite was true. He had a reputation for being ultra-chillaxed and low-key. At least when he wasn’t drinking.

Still, the man was a former Navy SEAL, which meant that he knew how to kill quickly and efficiently, in ways that Martell could only imagine.

But hell, how he could imagine …

Martell had met plenty of SEALs and former SEALs while doing the occasional odd job for Ric, and they were holy-mother-of-what-the-f*ck crazy—every single one of ’em.

Start with the fact that the training they went through to become a Navy freaking SEAL was just shy of torture—carrying telephone poles up and down the beach and into the freezing surf; running, running, always running, in full combat gear on soft sand; jumping out of airplanes and waiting until they nearly hit the ground before opening their chutes; swimming, miles and miles when they weren’t fricking running; exiting submarines via torpedo tubes—yeah, that shit was full-frontal insane. And that’s what they did in the morning, before they had lunch.

The training didn’t end when they became honest-to-bejesus SEALs and won their freaky little eagle-shaped pin to which they gave the extremely irreverent name of “Budweiser” despite the fact that it meant the world to them. Yeah, that’s when it all got even harder. And that’s also when they went out into what they called the real world and saved people from pirates, and ended the terror-reigns of dickheads like Osama bin Laden.

And that was what they called just another Monday.

Part of the job, nothing to see, move it along …

Yeah, they did it all without trumpet fanfare, as a matter of course, risking life and limb, working cheerfully together in close-knit teams even if they hated one another’s guts, saying shit like The only easy day was yesterday.

Which made it impossible, when around them, to complain about things like the meatball sub that was barely lukewarm when it had been delivered for lunch, or that boring legal brief he had to stay up into the wee hours to write because he’d procrastinated as long as he could and it was due in the morning.

Wah, wah, wah. And here he was, again, about to run crying to his evil government overlord, as Dunn had labeled Martell’s contact, because another Navy SEAL had figuratively kicked his ass.

Martell fumed, pissed as much at himself as he was at Dunn, as he again scrolled through his list of contacts to the number that the FBI team leader, Jules Cassidy, had given him just a few hours earlier today, when Martell had agreed to take on this assignment.

Which was supposed to have been brief, since this job was, quote, so freaking easy, unquote.

Martell had worked with Jules in the past, and he hesitated before pushing the button that would place the call, not sure if being personal friends with his evil government overlord was going to make this easier or harder.

Harder. Definitely.

In fact, he could already hear the disappointment in the FBI agent’s voice. You lost him. Already. Dude wouldn’t even make it a question, and then he’d sigh. Just a small exhale, barely audible. But that would make it worse.

Still, Martell hit call, knowing that time was of the essence. The FBI would be able to use their high-tech computers to find the license plate number of Phoebe’s car. They’d probably even be able to access satellite pictures to track and intercept it and its occupants.

The line rang once, twice, then beeped quietly—and died.

He dialed again.

Same thing.

That was weird. There was no option for Martell to leave a message—but maybe he didn’t need to. Maybe the super-secure line would make a note of his cell number. And Jules or one of his FBI underlings would swiftly call Martell back.

He hoped.

He sat in his car, staring at his phone, willing it to ring.

But it didn’t.

And … it didn’t.

“Shit.” So okay. He could just sit here, idling at the side of the road with his thumb up his ass. Or he could head up toward the dog track, to the low-rent motel that was the designated temporary safe house. Martell was supposed to have brought Dunn there, checked into a room, locked the door, and hunkered down to wait for additional contact.

Driving in that direction was as good a plan as any as he waited for a call back from the FBI, while praying that Ian Dunn wasn’t in fact a psychotic former Navy SEAL turned serial killer who was intending to cook and eat Phoebe Kruger for lunch.

Martell put his POS back in gear and sputtered his way toward the interstate.