Despite It All by Reese Knightley
Greene
Angry, dark clouds had been brewing all damned day.
And finally with a low growl, the sky opened up, sending a deluge of rain hammering against the pavement.
Overhead, water careened across the metal awning and dripped like tears over the side, crying for God only knows what as it drenched the earth. The noise increased with the violence of the storm, and he moved his boots back slightly from the water. Taking another pull from his smoke, he scratched at the cropped hairs along his chin and jaw. He almost missed his bushy beard.
A yellow lightbulb flickered overhead, emitting a small hum, signaling the light was on its last leg. That wasn’t the only thing on its last leg; his knee popped when he shifted position.
The base looked deserted.
Most sane people were inside away from the weather. Not him, though. He’d hoped the wildness of the storm’s power would silence his internal critic, but it had the opposite effect. Perhaps it wasn’t the storm’s fault, perhaps it had more to do with his desire to be alone in a base filled with a hundred soldiers.
He couldn’t believe he was back here.
Not this particular base, but back in active duty when he’d almost had one foot out the door. Fucking Liam; the colonel didn’t know when to leave well enough alone. Yeah, that was almost a year ago, so why are you still here? He didn’t have a ready answer for that, but figured it had something to do with not really belonging anywhere.
Here was better than nowhere.
He pulled in another drag, holding the smoke in deep, waiting for that numbing effect. Wondering if he’d sleep in the narrow bunk tonight or on the concrete floor. It was hit or miss.
The metal door that provided access to the back of the building gave a slight creak when it was pushed open and he hoped to God it wasn’t one of those damned new recruits. They never seemed to shut the hell up.
“Josh?”
“Sir?”
He shoved from his lean and stood at attention when Colonel Liam Cobalt stepped out of the door. Liam was the only one who called him Josh. One other person called him Joshua. Or he should say, hadcalled him Joshua until he shut that shit down quick.
“At ease.”
Liam’s lips pressed tightly and worry creased the skin at the corner of his eyes. Colonel Cobalt could be described in three ways: likable when he was hanging out with the guys, understanding when a person needed help, and a hard ass when someone royally screwed up.
“Sir.”
He leaned back against the cool, metal building.
“Remember Tahiti?”
His eyes jerked to Liam. “Fuck yeah, I do.” He’d gone dark for six weeks during that time, bringing a traitor to justice. Tahiti had been rough, enough said.
“We have a situation.”
“What’s that?”
“Not here, but I’m giving you a choice.” Liam held his gaze. “This is a classified, non-military operation. You might be asked to do things that don’t fit in with Army regulation.”
He straightened and took another pull from his smoke. “Do I need my gear?”
One corner of Liam’s mouth quirked. “You got your sidearm on you?”
He patted the inside of his heavy leather bomber jacket.
“I’ve got you covered for the rest.” Liam held out a go bag, it was the one from his locker.
“Confident, were you?”
“It’s in my nature.” It sure the hell was, but he liked that about Liam. The guy was a straight shooter. “But if you need to pull out, you still have time.”
“I’ll let you know.” A man needed to have options.
He gripped the handle and turned toward the squeal of tires when a big, black vehicle with blacked out windows barreled around from the front of the base and raced toward them. It pulled to a hard stop, the hiss of black tires kicking up rain water.
With a crack, the side door slid open, a dark, yawning gap.
He didn’t even hesitate, he flicked his cigarette onto the wet pavement, and stepped from beneath the awning and into the pounding rain. Reaching the vehicle, he stepped inside and over to the far side near the back.
Infinity’s vehicle was built more like a travel coach with wide leather seats lining each side, a section for seating in the rear, and driver and passenger seats up front.
It was packed full of Infinity and Fury soldiers.
Cigarette smoke, rain water, and someone’s cinnamon flavored breath mint filled the confined space.
He spotted the Secretary of Defense sitting in the passenger seat when someone in the back reached over for his go bag. He gave it up, seeing as it was Sergeant Holden Wreck.
Of all the men in Infinity, Holden was the one he knew the best. Like him, Holden was the only other man from their unit that slept on base. The guy didn’t talk much, but had a kind heart even though Holden had seen his fair share of death. He had recognized a kindred spirit early on.
Liam slid the big door closed and took a seat across from him, getting comfortable.
He sank into the expensive black leather seat next to Sergeant Isaac Thorne.
“Hey, Greene,” Isaac said as he glanced up from his phone.
“Hey.”
The space wasn’t tight, but it felt fucking tight to him and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Splaying his legs, he forced Isaac to scoot closer to Master Sergeant Zane Gannon. Isaac and Zane were a couple on and off the battlefield. Zane was rough and gruff, and Isaac was gregarious, likable, and had a smile that lit up a room. In his opinion, they were a mismatch, but they made it work. Their love was too sappy for his taste, though.
Behind the wheel, Captain Spencer Turner swung around and gaped at him, then flipped on the overhead light. “Well, holy fuck, who’s the pretty boy now?”
“I told ya,” Eagle cackled. “He cleans up real nice, don’t he?”
“I like it, Greene.” Holden patted his shoulder. “You could give Spencer a run for his money.”
“You going to take my title, Greene?” Spencer laughed.
“Fuck off.” He gave them all a flat look.
Cutting his hair and trimming his beard even more than normal had been a necessity. He’d let it grow too long while he’d been waiting for…well, it didn’t matter what he’d been waiting for.
It wasn’t any of their fucking business anyway. And Spencer could keep his title, he didn’t want to be known as the best-looking guy on base. He shot a scowl at Spencer.
Normally, Spencer was an alright guy, but he worried way too much about shit that wasn’t any of his damned concern. Spencer and Liam were engaged. Now, those two hardasses he could see being together, they were a power couple, ad infinitum.
Spencer kept on laughing, hit the gas, and the vehicle pulled away from the metal building and through the front gate.
“Don’t mind Spencer, he’s just jealous.” Captain Lincoln Beckett aka Link, who sat across from him, gave him an up nod. “In my opinion, Isaac outshines you both.”
“Thank you, Link.” Isaac blew on his knuckles and shined them against his shirt.
“Aww, Link’s a hero!” Spencer hooted.
Link grunted and gazed out the rain-splashed window. Link liked to play it cool, but he knew the man didn’t mind the razzing. Link had his share of problems, but he’d give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. The guy was one of the most protective badasses he knew.
In between Liam and Link sat Captain Declan Weller aka Eagle. He’d fought beside Eagle way back during his first tour right out of bootcamp when they’d been green, scared, and eager. Eagle went on to become a captain, while he had not. The best thing about Eagle? The man was funny as hell. But he knew the humor hid a personal pain that was often reflected in Eagle’s eyes when he thought nobody was watching.
Eagle shuffled that ever present deck of cards between his hands. The soft flutter of hard paper hitting against each other filled the cab when the deck folded together.
“Underground poker?” He lifted one eyebrow at Eagle.
“You game?” Eagle’s lips curled into a slow smile. They’d once played forty-eight hours straight.
“Only if you want your ass kicked again.”
Eagle’s eyes lit up. “That’s not what happened last time.”
“That was a fluke,” he promised.
Link snorted and turned from the window to stare at him. He’d met Link a few years after meeting Eagle. Both men were part of a three-man black ops unit known only as Fury. The third man was Spencer. Fury handled operations too dark to discuss.
Which reminded him.
Why were they here?
He glanced around at the men gathered. Not counting Liam and Dave, the vehicle held a team of seven soldiers.
At the level of expertise of the seven, he knew right then that this had to be black ops.
Maybe he should have told Liam no.
He braced a knee against the door when the big vehicle hit a pothole as it barreled up the on-ramp of the 101 Freeway and headed north.
“Greene.” Turning around as much as he could in the passenger seat, the Secretary of Defense shot him a tight smile.
“Sir.”
He’d known Dave for years, well before Liam had dragged him into Infinity a year ago. He’d been called in on several of the SOD’s impromptu missions too many times to count. So he wasn’t that surprised to find the SOD in the front seat.
If they needed his skill set, people were going to die. It wouldn’t be a problem for him to get in and annihilate shit. Just point him at the enemy and he’d get the job done.
“This mission stays off cell phones and computers, and we don’t talk about it unless we’re in a secure location. During the course of an ongoing FBI investigation, undercover FBI field agent Summer Peterson missed her one-month check-in.”
His eyes snapped to Dave’s in the cab, but it was too dim to see his expression.
A missing FBI agent?
Sounded like a snatch and grab. Not his area of expertise. He stretched his neck, the slight pop crackled through the cab. He aimed a dark look at Liam. His skills weren’t needed for this brand of justice.
What he did, what he’d done, had never involved such an assignment.
“What was she investigating?” he probed.
“Terrorist activity.”
Those words changed everything. A person who commits acts of terror?
He’d gladly kill.
“Summer is a good friend of Forest Taylor. They grew up together. She was ten when her family was killed in a car accident, so Summer had no one. The Taylors took her in.”
“I thought Forest quit the FBI again,” Isaac interrupted Dave.
“No way. Did he?” Zane asked.
“Wait, what?” He frowned; this was news to him.
“Hold on.” Dave held up a hand, stopping the barrage of questions. “Forest Taylor did quit the FBI about a year ago. But as a favor to me and Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge Rob Parish, he came back undercover the day he started with the Counterterrorism division.”
He remembered bits and pieces of that day over a year ago when Forest Taylor had walked in like he owned the place along with a team of agents asking for Infinity’s help with bringing the Chamber Brothers, a pair of homegrown terrorists, to justice. Although, due to his drunken fog at the time, it surprised him that he recalled any of it. After that, it became impossible not to run into Forest because the agent had come in and out of Special Ops like he owned the place.
Until six months ago.
Forest stopped showing up on base.
Right after that fucking party.
He knew that because everywhere he went, he watched for that bright head of hair.
“So, Forest was undercover when he asked for our help on the Chamber Brothers case?”
“Yes. I sent him in several months prior to that at the request of Parish, who suspects he has a mole inside his division leaking classified information about ongoing investigations.”
“That’s some serious fucking shit,” Holden said.
“You’ve got an undercover ops regarding a mole and now an agent goes missing?” He eyed Dave. “Don’t you think that’s related?”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Dave said.
“Does Forest think it’s related?”
“He doesn’t know yet.”
He stared at Dave. “Who’s going to tell him?”
“Rob Parish is handling that as we speak.” Dave passed forward several thin folders, enough for each of them. “Read that.”
He flipped open the front and ran down the information. Several sheets of paper covered information on Summer Peterson. He browsed through and found a page with Forest Taylor’s history. Two documents stapled together, stamped with a red top secret seal. Forest was part of the Operations Branch II, weapons of mass destruction and domestic terrorism, (WMD/DT) unit. His eyes snagged on a bit of surprising information.
“Taylor was part of the Fly Team?”
“Former member, but as part of that team, he deployed to Kenya, Pakistan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. The intel he retrieved was invaluable.” Dave hooked his arm around the headrest.
The Counterterrorism Fly Team had some of the most brilliant minds on the planet; brains and beauty, go figure. It wasn’t hard to picture the quick-witted agent as a former member of the elite squad.
“And now he’s back spying on his own team?”
“We were invited in.” Dave squinted at him.
“This isn’t our usual thing,” he said.
“You’re right.” Liam spoke this time. “It’s not your usual, but Dave needs the best of the best on this one.”
Dave ran a hand over his face, checked the face of his watch, and caught his gaze across the small distance.
“Your mission, should you choose to accept, will be to find and bring Summer home.” Did Dave realize he sounded like the guy on Mission Impossible?
Link must have thought the same thing because he started whistling the Mission Impossible theme song. Eagle broke out singing in perfect timing with Link’s whistling. They sounded like they’d practiced.
“Dun dun, daada, dun dun, daada, dun dun, doodaloo, doodaloo,” Eagle sang.
“Should take that shit on the road,” he laughed.
“We are on the road!” Eagle’s cackle was lost in the sudden sound of laughter filling the cab.
It probably wasn’t the best time to be laughing, but it went a long way to relieve the tension. Even when Liam frowned at them all, he still couldn’t stop chuckling.
“All right, knock it off, ya clowns,” Dave said, amusement filling his voice.
“Where do you fit into all this?” He sobered.
“Forest answers to me and therefore, the President.”
He ran a hand over his closely cropped beard. Damn it, now he had more questions.
“This mission is classified and off the books, guys,” Liam said before he could demand answers.
Off the books meant going so far deep into the shit the higher-ups could deny all knowledge. Would their involvement be denied if things blew apart?
Great.
Fuck, he needed a drink.
He rubbed a hand over his mouth, and sent Liam a dark look. He should ask them to drop him off at the next block. Why not make a real treat out of it and have them just dump him at the next bar they came across?
Flipping the page in the report, he was caught off guard by a snapshot of Forest Taylor. Attractive didn’t even begin to describe the ocean blue-colored eyes and messy, bright hair. Not only former Fly Team, Forest had served in the army from the age of eighteen to twenty-one, where he earned an associate degree. After the army, he’d gone on to get a bachelor’s degree in criminology, but his work history from twenty-two to twenty-five was blacked out with a thick marker until he resurfaced seven years ago and joined the FBI. He roamed for the man’s birthdate; thirty-three in December.
His eyes jerked up from the paper.
“He’s a twin?”
“Yeah,” Dave muttered.
Christ, there were two of them running around out there? Go figure. Fly Team, works undercover for the SOD, and half of a set of twins. What else was there to uncover about Forest Taylor?
Not that it was any of his business.
He snapped the folder closed and shoved it back at Liam, who collected every piece of paper from everyone. Liam handed them to Dave, who locked the top secret documents in his briefcase.
Yeah, this mission had black ops written all over it.