November 25, 2:00 a.m.
Fort Bragg
Vanessa stared over the edge of the hundred-foot vertical drop. She gave her climbing harness one last tug and then stepped off the precipice. A person did have to ask herself why she was out here at two o’clock in the morning in a cold rain, climbing down a viciously slippery cliff in total darkness, for the purposes of scoping out a pretend weapons lab in a pretend hostile country, guarded by pretend bad guys. All psychobabble about connecting with her father aside, only a violently overdeveloped competitive streak could account for this insanity. Hoo-hah.
Although she let out her rappelling line quickly, she descended more slowly than usual. She had deep respect for the combination of treacherous conditions and her team’s fatigue. They’d hiked nearly twenty miles in the last twelve hours, after working all night last night to knock out the ranger team. Just like Jack had taught them that very first week of training in Colorado: Do something the other guys think is physically impossible, and you buy yourself time and the element of surprise. Since the folks running against them knew they were women, she was counting on them to underestimate her team’s physical capabilities. By her calculations, the bad guys wouldn’t expect them to show up at this spot for another day at least.
She jerked her attention back to the task at hand. This was no time to be daydreaming. She assessed the conditions for the climb back up the cliff as she went. There was plenty of loose shale to knock off with a misplaced foot. And her team was going to be tired long before they finished hauling themselves up this cliff. Good call to leave Karen and Misty behind to manage the ropes from above and help pull up anyone who ran out of strength. Isabella and Kat would provide cover and eyes outside the building, and she and Aleesha would run the gauntlet of traps and tricks she was certain awaited them around and inside the supposed weapons lab.
The ground came into sight below, a vague black wetness between her feet. One last release and grab of the rope sliding up her back, and her feet touched down. She signaled Kat and Isabella to fan out. They unslung their rifles and melted into the dreary night. She nodded at Aleesha, and they headed for the low, wooden building some fifty feet in front of them.
Each step was an exercise in controlling her nerves. Trip wires, faint depressions in the ground to indicate mines, infrared sensor beams all awaited them as they moved forward cautiously. Aleesha took the lead as they neared the building. She pointed out two probable land mines to Vanessa, who nodded and stepped over them. Not three steps later, Vanessa tugged sharply on her teammate’s shirt, halting her in midstride. Aleesha looked over her shoulder questioningly, her foot suspended in midair. Vanessa pointed out a vertical metal spike, maybe two inches tall, that Aleesha’s foot would have landed on had she stepped down. A third land mine. The doctor nodded and stepped over the device.
They stepped over six trip wires and ducked under a couple more. As they’d expected, the entire building was one giant trap. But after nearly thirty minutes of work to cover the fifty feet, they stood outside a dirty glass window, peering inside. No sign whatsoever of a chemical lab. There were, however, a couple chairs, some rope, manacles, brass knuckles and car batteries. A prisoner facility. This had all been an elaborate setup to begin their POW training.
Vanessa signaled Aleesha to take some pictures of the bare interior. Her teammate pulled out a silent shutter camera loaded with infrared film. She took several shots of the space, then bent to photograph underneath the building, no doubt to show that the pier-and-beam structure concealed no secret underground facility.
Aleesha froze, bent over. And gestured for Vanessa to have a look. She bent slowly. The entire underside of the floor was wired with explosives. Of course, this was a training scenario, and the blocks of C-4 were no more than rubber marked to simulate the plastic explosive. But it was still a daunting sight. A trap, indeed. A death trap. Vanessa signaled Aleesha to take a picture of their intended fate.
Pictures done, Vanessa reached into her backpack and pulled out the two Claymore mines they’d stolen from the rangers. She handed one to Aleesha and pointed to the far corner of the building. She took her own Claymore and gestured that she’d head for the opposite corner.
Aleesha touched her sleeve. She breathed, “These will blow up the building.”
Vanessa shrugged. She was more than a little annoyed at Wittenauer, who had tried to yank their chains on this op, and at Jack, who hadn’t given them any warning about the scenario they were walking into. It was standard procedure to notify trainees when they were about to go into their resistance-and-escape training. The very real Claymores would send both men a message about jacking around with the Medusas. She murmured, “A realistic response to realistic training.”
Aleesha grinned and threw her a mock salute. Then she turned to set her mine. Vanessa eased step by painfully slow step toward the opposite end of the building. She paused twice, feeling the gentle pressure of a trip wire against her shin. Both times she eased her foot back before she snapped the thin wire. The rain came down heavily, running off the roof in a cold, soaking sheet of water that drenched her to the skin. But it was a boon in that it partially collapsed the freshly dug spots where mines had been buried. They were a piece of cake to spot in this kind of weather.
Taking no chances, she stopped shy of the end of the building and pulled out her folding periscope. She took a peek around the end of the building before she stepped out from behind its shadow. And was darn glad she had. A pair of ponchoed soldiers sat under a tarp stretched between two trees, not twenty feet from her. Well then, this corner of the building would have to do for the mine. Given the aged wood of the structure, it should go up in flames nicely, regardless of where the explosions lit off.
She crouched and eased the Claymore behind the foot-tall concrete piling. No sense killing the poor schmucks pulling guard duty. The piling would shield them from the direct force of the blast. Very gently, she pushed down the switch that activated it. And lifted her hand away gingerly. She backed away from the corner, fluffing flattened leaves, and using a stick to remove her footsteps. Dodging the traps was fun while moving backward. But that’s why they got the big bucks. Yeah, right. A couple hundred bucks a month in hazardous duty pay added to their measly government paychecks. At least they got to blow up stuff.
Eventually, she felt Aleesha’s presence approaching. She exchanged a quick thumbs-up with her teammate. The egress away from the back of the building was dicey in the downpour, made more so by the knowledge that even a “training charge” explosion might be enough to set off one of the real Claymores behind them.
But finally they reached the base of the cliff. Isabella and Kat eased up beside them. Kat indicated the two guards that Vanessa had seen by the building, but neither woman had seen any more. Two clicks on her throat radio, and four ropes came snaking down the face of the cliff. A hundred feet up in total silence, and they’d be clear.
November 25, 5:00 a.m.
Bhoukar
Defoe and his men buried the bodies in shallow graves. They didn’t need a flock of circling vultures to point out their position to anyone else who might be out there. Walsh reclaimed Uncle Sam’s radio from the terrorists and added it to their own gear. Oman, here they came. At top speed. Now that they’d taken care of their pursuers for good, they could beat feet out of this damned wasteland. They liberated the terrorists’ water as well. It was stored in skin sacks that made it taste like warm goat piss, but it was water. And the skins, slung across their backs, were surprisingly easy to carry.
They made good time the rest of the night and into the next morning. Defoe called a stop at noon, when the sand and the air really began to heat up. They dug holes and stretched tarps across them for shade. They’d rest through the worst heat of the day. He took the first shift alone so the others guys could catch some z’s before it got too hot.
A couple more days of movement like last night’s would see them across the border. Damn, he was ready for something to go smoothly for once on this mission.
They humped hard all the next night, too, but they stopped earlier the following morning. They were getting low on water again. Defoe deployed the solar water collectors—big plastic tarps stretched over deep, freshly dug holes in the sand. They worked on the principle of capturing the humidity trapped in the hole as condensation that formed on the plastic sheet. He eyed the sky warily. He didn’t like that pink-brown cast to the sky on the western horizon. Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, that was just a weather front passing through, kicking up some sand, and not a full-blown sandstorm cooking.
November 25
a hospital in Bhoukar
Scott opened his eyes as a nurse sidled into his room. She looked over her shoulder furtively as she delivered a plate of boiled chicken and rice. He was sick of the bland food, but it was probably as good as the fare the hospital staff got. He sat up in bed as best he could with his hands manacled to the bed frame.
The nurse fed him his breakfast, and he murmured his thanks as usual. She smiled back at him, but the expression didn’t penetrate the fear in her eyes. And then she did a strange thing. She pulled a pencil out of her robe and scribbled something on the paper napkin she’d brought in with his meal. He looked at the writing and frowned. It was in the Latin alphabet. N2O2SNA.
What the hell was that? He looked up at the woman and started to ask when the hallway door opened. Good ol’Akbar stepped into the room. She balled up the napkin and threw it on top of his plate. Silently, she took the plate away and exited.
N2O2SNA? He repeated the sequence to himself. A phone number? A zip code? He repeated it again. And then it hit him. It was a scientific notation. Christ. He lurched against his restraints. That was the chemical formula for sodium pentathol. His brain went into high gear. Given in the proper dosage, the drug reduced inhibitions. Made a person willing to talk about things they might not otherwise admit. The nurse was warning him that Akbar was planning to use it on him!
He had to plant some image in his mind before he was hit with the drugs. Something to fixate on. Not Delta Three, but something close enough to it he’d mess up Akbar. He thought fast.
Got it. He envisioned the weekend trip he and his dad made when he was fourteen to a national paintball tournament. Perfect. If he slipped and said something of military significance, Akbar would think it was all part of the paintball game. Frantically, he recalled details of that weekend as Akbar’s hand, holding a syringe full of amber liquid, reached for his IV.
November 25, 6:00 a.m.
Fort Bragg
As morning broke, gray and wet around them, Vanessa and the others lay on their bellies atop the cliff, peering down at their handiwork through binoculars. “We have to wait until those two soldiers move off before we blow the building. I don’t want to kill anyone,” she murmured. “Yet.”
Misty murmured back, “If that were Wittenauer sitting there, that building would be a fireball right about now.”
She grinned back at her teammate. “I can neither confirm nor deny that statement,” she declared under her breath.
“Movement, Viper,” Isabella announced. “Jeep coming down the road. Looks like replacement guards for our soggy pair.”
“Everyone, look sharp,” Vanessa bit out. “Cobra, get ready.”
Kat nodded over the telescopic sight of her long-barreled sniper rifle and then settled into a nearly catatonic state behind her weapon. Talk about Zen. Vanessa envied the utter stillness she could settle into at a moment’s notice. The army’d made a huge mistake keeping her out of the sniper corps. Their loss. The Medusas’ gain.
The sniper reached up and rolled the condom off the end of her rifle barrel. Vanessa grinned. When Jack had passed out the foil packets marked with an army supply code and the words, ‘Protector, Rifle Barrel, Rubber’ they’d ribbed him pretty good over it. He’d actually blushed. But the suckers worked great for keeping sand or water out of a rifle. And you could actually fire a bullet right through the latex if you needed to.
“Jesus, that’s Scatalone,” Isabella whispered.
Vanessa’s attention yanked back to the situation at hand. She trained her binoculars on the three men climbing out of the vehicle. She couldn’t make out the men’s faces, but she didn’t have to. She recognized the set of his shoulders, the aggressive grace of his walk, the sheer presence of the man.
The night watch soldiers stepped out from under their tarp. A few more feet toward the jeep, boys. “On my call, Kat, shoot the Claymores.”
“Roger. On your call,” her sniper breathed.
Jack gestured toward the back of the jeep. All four men stepped toward the vehicle. Perfect. The tough jeep would provide an extra margin of protection from the blast.
There. The men put the jeep between themselves and the building.
“Now,” she ordered sharply.
Vanessa saw Jack flinch as the first shot rang out. He was already diving for the ground when the Claymore blew. Good reflexes, there, Tonto. In a flash of blinding light, wood flew high up into the sky along with a whoosh of orange flames.
The metallic ping of the second shot as Kat took out the second Claymore was inaudible over the roar of the fire sucking air. So much for one training building. She saw Jack look around, scanning the trees quickly. And then his eyes traveled up the cliff face as he calculated the direction the shots had come from.
“Everyone freeze,” Vanessa ordered. She counted the long seconds as Jack scanned the ridge they lay on. Finally his gaze slid away as one of the other soldiers said something to him.
“Back up, ladies.” Vanessa slid backward on her belly, scouring red mud into her clothes. Ah well, all the better for camouflage. It reminded her of the first day she’d met Jack, a lifetime ago. A little less than four months.
She signaled them to their feet and led them away from the area. Fast. If she knew anything about Jack Scatalone, he’d be up on that ridge as soon as he could pull a team together. And with pissed-off Deltas, that would take only a matter of minutes. Isabella countertracked for the team. That girl had eyesight for details that wouldn’t quit. And it was a huge benefit when it came to erasing every last sign of their passage.
They all but ran out of the area. Vanessa put a good four miles behind them before she even stopped to look at the map. They were on the far side of the air force base from the cluster of training buildings near their barracks where they were supposed to bring their photos of the “chemical lab.” But then she had an idea. An inspiration, actually.
“Instead of heading back toward the training headquarters, what say we pay General Wittenauer a little visit in his room? Tonight. Late.”
The whole team grinned widely. It lent an extra spring to their steps as they humped hard throughout the day. They’d been on the go almost nonstop for three days now, but Vanessa was hardly aware of it. Funny how a person’s perception of fatigue could change. They swung wide around the edge of the training area, way beyond the likely perimeter of any search Jack might mount for them. It nearly doubled the distance they had to travel, but it was worth it. She couldn’t wait to see the general’s face when they woke him up tonight, Medusa-style.
Of course, maybe they should let the guy sleep. And just steal his pants—all of them—and then leave. Or maybe they should take him hostage and goose-step him across the parade ground naked. As exhaustion began to pull at the edges of her consciousness, she kept herself alert by thinking up more dastardly stunts to pull on Wittenauer.
They made it to the clustered buildings of the main army post by nightfall, and all of them were able to get a couple hours’ sleep. At midnight Vanessa woke the team. It was an easy matter to hot-wire a van and drive, as pretty as you please, into the VOQ—Visiting Officer’s Quarters—parking lot. Karen, who’d procured the vehicle, turned off the engine and the lights. They slid down low in their seats and watched the parking lot for a half hour before Vanessa declared it clear. Fatigue had to be making her paranoid, because she’d swear Jack was nearby if she didn’t know better. It was almost as if she could smell him on the air. Sheesh. She was losing her marbles.
“Okay, let’s do it,” she murmured.
Tall, buxom, blond Misty was elected to find out which room the general was in. She borrowed tiny Katrina’s T-shirt and shrugged into the small garment. Then, wiggling underneath it, she unsnapped her bra and pulled it out the left sleeve. The effect was startling. “Damn, girlfriend,” Vanessa murmured, “You could’ve made a fortune as a stripper with those things.”
The tanned blonde tugged the shirt down farther over her prodigious chest and grinned back. “How’s that line go? Yeah, but then I wouldn’t get to blow up shit.”
Vanessa retorted, “You’re gonna blow the night clerk’s mind in that getup.”
Misty pulled her camo pants low on her hips, exposing a line of flat stomach. She slung her utility belt low on her hips, with manacles and a length of rope conveniently peeking out of its pouches. Next, she took her hair down out of its customary French braid and fingered it out into loose, sexy waves around her shoulders. Last, she bit her lips and pinched her cheeks, laughing ruefully, “Who’d have guessed I’d need mascara on a field op. I’ll have to add it to my minimum equipment list.”
Karen grumbled, “I’m not turning into a Bond girl, and that’s final.”
Everyone laughed quietly at that one.
Vanessa said lightly, “Okay, Misty, you’ve got five minutes to find out what room Wittenauer’s in, or we’re going to do it the old-fashioned way. By looking in the windows.”
Misty gave a little shimmy that set strategic parts of her jiggling in the most fantastic way. “I’ll only need two minutes. A minute fifty-five for the desk clerk to drool and five seconds to find out what I need to know.”
Aleesha piped up. “I’ve got ten bucks that says you can’t do it in two minutes.”
Misty shook her head. “I am, of course, honor bound to accept that bet in the name of all the other nonsilicone breasts in the world.”
Aleesha eyed her comrade’s chest narrowly. “You’re not saying those things are real, are you? Damn. They’re practically miracles of genetic selection.”
Chuckling, Vanessa intervened. “Get out of here, Misty. And the clock’s running.”
One minute, twenty-two seconds later, Misty was back. And about one minute ten of that had been spent walking to and from the check-in counter. She opened the door to the van and slid into the front seat in disgust. “Female clerk,” she grumbled.
Vanessa grinned widely. “Too bad you didn’t get to work out the girls. Did you at least get the room number?”
“Yeah. Suite A. First one on the left on the far side of the building. Ground floor.”
It was almost too easy. They could pop the window lock and be in the general’s room in a matter of seconds. Except something didn’t sit right with Vanessa about this one. Sheesh. She really was starting to get paranoid. Nonetheless, she climbed out of the van. They stuck to the dark shadows, employing urban stealth techniques to make their way around the main VOQ building. They ducked low under windows, spun fast past doorways, and stuck to shrubbery and shadows for cover.
The rest of the team looked at her funny when she stopped under Wittenauer’s window and pulled out her periscope. It was just a hotel room, for God’s sake. Except she couldn’t shake that bad feeling. She eased the scope’s end up over the sill and had a slow look around the room. God, she needed a pair of night-vision goggles right about now. Those hadn’t been issued to the team for this op. She made out the shape of a body sleeping in Wittenauer’s bed. And she could see most of the room clearly, except for one corner shrouded in black shadows. She observed it for a long time. Long enough to feel impatience start to build up in her team. Tough. She was listening to her gut on this one. And something was wrong.
She pictured Wittenauer’s build and had another look at the blanket-covered form on the bed. The general was in excellent physical condition, but he wasn’t as thin or as tall as the person lying on his bed. The mattress was either in terrible shape and had swallowed a third of the general’s midsection, or that wasn’t Wittenauer lying there. She let her senses flow outward, trying to sense the trap. She didn’t like that dark corner to the right of the window, either. Something or someone lurked over that way.
Two hostiles. One in the corner and one impersonating the general in his bed. She signaled the information to her team, who stared at her for a moment in disbelief, and then absorbed the new information and adapted. Stealth wasn’t going to work in this scenario. Surprise would be their best weapon. They’d burst in all at once. Three of them jump whoever was hiding in the corner, two would land on whoever was lying in the bed, and one would use a gun to take out anyone hiding behind the bed.
She communicated her plan to the others with hand signals and a drawing in the dirt. They nodded their understanding. Now for the window. If this were a real op, she’d just bust through it. But this was the VIP suite at Fort Bragg’s VOQ. Aw, what the heck. They’d already blown up an entire building today. What was one more window? She eased a tarp out of her bag and wrapped its end around her forearm. The bulk of the tarp she folded into a pad over her right shoulder. All set.
She nodded a countdown to her team, who clustered behind her.
And then all hell broke loose. She dived through the window with a tremendous crack of splintering wood and shattering glass. She rolled and popped up onto her feet, and took a running leap for the bed. The person in the bed started to roll to the far side, but only made it halfway to the edge of the king-size mattress before she landed on him, spread-eagled over his entire body.
Vanessa vaguely registered sound and motion behind her as the others burst in and subdued the man seated in the chair in the corner. But what slowed time to a stop and riveted her attention completely was the burning black gaze of Jack Scatalone glaring up at her.
Sweet Jesus, she felt every hard inch of him pressed against her from head to foot. They had to stop meeting like this. Her insides went molten, and she had an overpowering urge to flow all over him and burn the night down around them both.
Silence settled over the room as quickly as it had been disturbed. And then Jack spoke dryly, his chest rumbling beneath hers. “I told you they’d come for you, General.”
She scowled down at him. Becoming predictable, was she? She moved sinuously against him and felt his whole body go tense beneath her. Uh-huh. That got his attention.
She looked over her shoulder at the general, still restrained in his chair by three of her teammates. The guy’s eyes glittered in the pink halogen light coming in the window from the parking lot.
“If I might offer you a word of advice, General,” Vanessa said lightly. “Next time you want to ambush and humiliate us, send a real team to do the job.”
Jack’s chest vibrated beneath hers with silent laughter. Her gaze jerked back to his. And for the first time, they were comrades-in-arms against a common foe. Equals.
November 25
eastern Bhoukar
They weren’t lucky. Defoe and his men had just enough time before the sandstorm blew in to build themselves a low, makeshift tent from their water collection tarps. They tied down the corners as best they could and lashed a piece of canvas across the entrance, but it hardly seemed to slow down the stinging needles of sand that pelted them. They took turns banging the underside of the roof, knocking sand off their shelter to keep them from being buried alive under the accumulating drifts of grit. The wind howled around them, screaming like a banshee. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the temperature dropped precipitously. They suffered and waited throughout the day. Dark crept up gradually until blackness completely cocooned them. It was cramped in their shelter and smelled of stale sweat and frayed nerves.
Defoe ventured out once to take a leak and barely found the tent again, even though he’d only taken a few steps away from the structure. He couldn’t see a damned thing, not even his hand in front of his face. He crawled back inside on a blast of sand that drew a grumble from the other men.
All through that night and the next day, the sand blew relentlessly. On the morning of the second day, he thought he heard a change in the tenor of the wind. Maybe a softening of the harsh howling. Or maybe it was just a hallucination. He was starting to feel pretty detached from any reality he’d ever known. A weak shaft of light penetrated the shelter, heralding dawn, such as it was.
Defoe wiggled out of his space blanket. Not as cold as yesterday. But that wasn’t saying much. A witch’s tits were still history in this storm. Ginelli staggered back inside the shelter. “Hey! It’s almost light enough to move out there. I figure if we get on the compasses and stick to ’em, we could put a few more miles behind us.”
Defoe couldn’t blame the guy. He was eager to get out of here, too. At this rate, they’d be lucky to make it home in time for Christmas. Hell of a two-week recon in the desert this mission had turned into. The proverbial three-hour tour. Except they didn’t have the hot babes Gilligan had had to make his predicament bearable.
He looked around the tiny space. At least they’d caught up on their sleep while they waited out the storm. But the guys still looked haggard. At the end of their ropes. “All right. Let’s pack up and blow this Popsicle stand.”
They walked a couple hours in the swirling sand, pieces of cloth wrapped around their heads, covering all of their faces except a slit for their eyes. They entered a region of rocky ridges and climbed carefully over mounds of freshly deposited sand that obscured sharp rocks and crevices. It was treacherous terrain and their pace slowed to a crawl.
And then Spot piped up from behind him. “Uh, boss. I hate to break this to you, but we’ve got company.”
Defoe froze, his heart sinking. “Report,” he breathed, what little adrenaline he had left pushing into his veins.
“Trail of black specks behind us. Coming straight at us. Ten, maybe twelve guys. Moving fast. I’ve seen ’em twice now when the sand let up some.”
“Any chance it’s a mirage?” Defoe asked grimly.
Spot answered with disgust. “I wish.”
“Everybody, reduce your profile,” Defoe ordered. “Let’s keep moving as deep into this rocky shit as we can.” He looked up at the sky, which was taking on that damned pink-brown tint again. And prayed more sandstorm didn’t close in on them.
It did. About an hour after dark, the wind gusted up around fifty miles per hour, and the blowing sand was so painful he couldn’t open his eyes at all to see where he was going. Reluctantly, he called a halt. At least if they couldn’t move, whoever was behind them couldn’t move, either.
They waited out the night as the storm raged around them. The wind took on the sound of a madwoman laughing hysterically. Enough to make a guy a little crazy himself. His watch eventually said it was morning, but damned if it wasn’t nearly as dark as it had been all night. He couldn’t take this anymore, just sitting here doing nothing. None of them could. He didn’t even have to ask if they wanted to pack up and move out, even though they couldn’t see a goddamned thing. They tied themselves together with rope, lest one of them wander a foot or two away and be lost.
He shouldered his pack and stepped forward. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time closer to home. They stopped every ten minutes or so to take a compass bearing and correct to an easterly heading. Every time they stopped, they switched off the lead position. Might as well spread around the fun with sandblasting facials.
Defoe had been in front for about ten minutes in the third hour of their blind hike through the storm when a huge, dark shape suddenly loomed in front of him. He jolted to a stop and squinted up at it. It was really big. Something like ten feet tall. It let out a strange noise like a donkey braying and he lurched backward. And noticed another huge shape to his left. And one to his right. Jesus Christ, what was going on?
He scrubbed his hands across his eyes, knocking the sand off his lashes and blinking hard to make out what the hell had just surrounded them.
Camels. The only creature on earth who could and would move freely in a sandstorm. He exhaled in relief.
And then froze in shock. A dozen armed men slid off the camels’ backs, pointing rifles at them. They were surrounded. And about to be captured. Son of a bitch. A perfect ending to a perfect mission.
December 18
Fort Bragg
After everything else they’d been through, their prisoner-of-war training was anticlimactic. The Medusas sailed through the supposed sleep deprivation, beatings, lousy food and endless interrogations. It certainly sucked, but it didn’t come close to breaking any of them. And, better, it marked the end of their formal training.
They quickly knocked off advanced sky diving, advanced survival school, and an assortment of other miscellaneous courses. And then they were done. Just like that. They had at their disposal the full arsenal of basic Special Forces knowledge. Now it was up to them to go forth and apply it intelligently and with guts. All they had left to do was amass some all-important field experience.
A week before Christmas, Vanessa rode with Jack on a Learjet to the Pentagon for his classified final report on the Medusa Project to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and various congressional representatives.
This time, when she turned down the corridor leading to the offices of the Joint Chiefs, she was at her spit-shined best. A whole lot different from the first time she’d walked these halls. She was a whole lot different inside, too. She knew herself worlds better. Knew the world Jack Scatalone and men like him lived in. And knew—knew—that women belonged there. Not every woman, certainly. But then, not every man belonged there either. More than anything else, being in the Special Forces was a mind-set. And it belonged to women as well as to men.
She got to the big, circular briefing room about fifteen minutes early. A few staffers were there, but none of the main players had arrived yet. About five minutes prior to the briefing, Jack walked in, deep in quiet conversation with General Wittenauer. Actually, it looked more like an extremely restrained argument. Jack seemed beyond tense about whatever they were talking about. Wired to blow any second, in fact.
She sidled up to him. “Everything okay?” she murmured.
“Hell, no, everything’s not okay!” he retorted.
She recoiled from the violence in his voice.
He continued under his breath, “My team’s gone missing. There’s been no word from them since Thanksgiving.”
Thanksgiving? That was three weeks ago! No wonder the guy was about to blow a gasket. “Is there anything I can do to help? Anything the Medusas can do?” she asked in concern.
His gaze slid away. He sighed heavily. “Yeah. Forgive me for what I’ve put you through these past four months.”
She shrugged. “Given the end product, none of us have anything to complain about. You’re a hell of an instructor.”
A troubled look flitted across his face, but before she could ask what put it there, a steady parade of generals arrived and Jack was sucked away to shake hands and make nice with the brass. The generals were followed shortly by the civilians—several congressmen and a bevy of congressional staffers. A gray-haired man in a dark gray suit shot her a malignant glare as he moved past her to his seat. The name card in front of him read Senator McClure. She recalled he’d barely won his Senate seat back for a sixth term in November. Clearly not a fan of the Medusa Project.
The doors shut a few minutes late, but finally Jack stepped up to the podium. Vanessa wiped her damp palms on her skirt.
She listened carefully as he gave a brief overview of the purpose of the Medusa Project, how the team had been selected, and the training the women had been put through. Even she was a little impressed to see all they’d done spelled out like that. And then Jack stepped around in front of the wood podium. “I’ll go over the details later, gentlemen, but let me cut directly to the chase.”
His gaze captured hers for just a moment and then jerked away. She’d never seen such a turbulent look in his eyes before.
He continued, his voice stony, “In short, the Medusa Project failed. Women do not belong in the Special Forces.”