Mercenary Trilogy - Willing Part 27

Josie hadn't even noticed they'd finished their compet.i.tion. Daniel and Hotwire were still drying off a few feet away.

Lise looked up at Wolf, her expression wry. "What do you think?"

He responded with a probing look that jumped from Lise to Josie to Daniel and back to Lise. She made a small inclination of her head, and some silent communication pa.s.sed between them because he heaved a sigh and frowned at Daniel.

"Who swam the most laps?" Josie asked as Wolf lifted Lise from the side of the pool.

"I did." Hotwire tossed his towel in the bin beside the pool and then struck a pose, flexing his biceps. "It' s easy to see why, don't you think, ladies?"

"By one lap," Daniel said, coming to stand beside them, and then shoved his friend sideways into the pool.

The resounding splash sent water spraying over Josie, and she shrieked, jumping to her feet.

Daniel grinned at her, his gaze dropping to where her now wet tank top clung to her chest. "Wolf and I were ready to get back to you two."

"I'm always ready to get back to my wife." Wolf caressed Lise's protruding middle, his warrior's eyes reflecting joy and satisfaction. "Pretty soon you're going to be too round to be sitting on the ground."

Lise looked down at where his hand rested against her and grinned. "I'm already there, but as long as I' ve got you around to hoist me back up, I'm safe."

Hotwire heaved himself out of the pool, no limitation to his strength and agility in evidence. "Was that my victory dunking?"

"Watch it or you'll get another one," Wolf warned.

"The element of surprise works only once in an encounter, unless your enemy is stupid, and my mama didn't raise any idiots." Grinning and giving Josie a once-over, he shook himself, and water sprayed all of them again.

Josie jumped back from her second unplanned cold shower and landed right against Daniel. His arm came over her shoulder as a towel landed around her neck, strategically covering parts of her wet tank top. Her gaze shot to her lover's face, and the expression there stunned her. He was looking mean, and he was looking at Hotwire.

She glanced over at the blond Georgian and couldn't see anything in the other man's expression that could have upset Daniel, until she remembered that Hotwire had been looking at her as he deliberately sprayed the water again. Apparently it bothered Daniel that Hotwire had seen her wet tank. She could have told him not to worry. Most men she met did not react to her modest attributes with unbridled desire, but saying so would do no good.

Daniel had gotten extremely territorial since Hotwire showed up. His friend had noticed, making it obvious he delighted in pushing Daniel's b.u.t.tons.

She was used to being around strong men who jockeyed for position with each other despite closefriendship, but she wasn't used to being the target they jockeyed around."You afraid she's going to run away if you don't hold on to her all the time?" Hotwire asked, his smile nothing less than a goad."I like touching her.""Do you now?" Hotwire mocked, "I never would have noticed." But the significant look he gave them said otherwise.

Heat that had nothing to do with the summer sun climbed up Josie's neck. She was unfamiliar with being

the other half of a couple, particularly around a friend intent on teasing her to death. His target might beDaniel, but she was the one embarra.s.sed. She knew without looking that he wasn't blushing.She threw out the first verbal sally she could think of to change the direction of the conversation. "And I'

m not going anywhere, even if you'd all like me to."The other two had joined Daniel in trying to convince her to stay behind. It made no sense to her. Shewas one of the best soldiers they'd ever worked with, and she didn't have to be arrogant to think so.

They'd said it. They'd also brought her in on more than one independent mission. Their desire to keepher behind this time baffled her."We don't want you gone. I like watching Daniel squirm around you. It humanizes him," Wolf said, proving he could be just as irritating as Hotwire.Lise elbowed his stomach. "Behave."He smiled down at her. "If I behaved, you'd be real disappointed, honey."Lise's gaze went unfocused in a way Josie understood very well. "Yes, I guess I would."A disgusted sound erupted from Hotwire. "Would you two stop it? You're bad enough back home, but I thought you'd at least try to behave in front of company."

Josie had to smile. Beginning a start-up company around a couple of newlyweds no doubt had itschallenges."Nitro and Josie aren't company," Wolf said, still looking at his wife with enough heat to singe her."Which is precisely why Josie shouldn't be going on this mission," Hotwire said, proving he'd gotten the gist of her words from the get-go.

"That's ridiculous." She'd been friends with the three mercenaries before when they were on missionstogether.Wolf transferred his gaze to her, his brown eyes serious and compelling. "No, it's not. Look at how Nitro is with you. A soldier with his focus on anything besides the mission ends up a dead soldier."Hotwire nodded, his own expression grim. "His first priority is going to be keeping you safe.""Of course it isn't," she denied.

"He cares about you. That changes things," Wolf said."Are you trying to tell me that he tries to baby-sit you two on missions? Because I'll tell you right now, I don't buy it. I've seen the three of you in action. You cannot deny you care about each other, but themission always comes first."Hotwire made a choking noise, and Wolf stared at her as if she'd said something rude while Daniel laughed. "We're men.""And I'm a woman. Are you saying you don't think I'm a good soldier?""That's not what this is about.""Then what is it about?""Me not wanting to see you hurt."The sentiment was nice, but she wasn't accepting it as an excuse to leave her behind. "Ninety-five percent of the jobs you took as mercs included protecting someone, and that never got in the way of

your ability to fight or do your job."

"It's not the same thing." Wolf hugged his wife to his side. "There's protecting someone and then there's keeping someone you love safe."

"Which is why you did such a terrible job on your mission to capture Lise's stalker?" she askedtongue-in-cheek.Wolf had the grace to look uncomfortable. "But it was a lot more stressful than a normal a.s.signment."Lise glared up at him. "Thanks a lot."

"So, you're saying Daniel's too much of a pansy to handle the stress of worrying about me?"

Both Wolf and Hotwire looked chagrined at that, undoubtedly as aware as she was that such an idea was ludicrous.

"Not." Daniel squeezed her. "This is not about me; it's about you and you staying safe."

"Lise's not going." Wolf said it as if that was some kind of irrefutable proof Josie shouldn't either.

This was getting nuts. "Can we take a reality check here? Lise is an author, a really great author, but

definitely not a soldier, and she's pregnant.""You're having your woman's thing," Daniel announced with a total lack of tact."It's not even remotely the same thing, and may I remind you that even without being pregnant, she is still not a soldier and I am? A darn good one, too.""I thought you wanted a more normal life."She rolled her eyes. "That does not mean I'm going to ignore a threat to my dad's life or that I'm going to let you all go in and risk your lives while I stay behind and paint my toenails again.""d.a.m.n it, the job only needs a four-person unit."Technically it could be done with four people, but five would be better, and he had to know it. "Then one of you stay behind.""Nitro..." The censorship in Hotwire's voice would have been funny in other circ.u.mstances."I'm sorry," Daniel growled. "I'm trying, dam-darn it.""What are you trying?" Lise asked, her expression saying everything happening right now was great fodder for her imagination.

"Not to swear in front of Josette." Daniel rubbed her shoulders as if apologizing again. "She's a lady, and

it's not polite."

Wolf smirked. Hotwire nodded, and Lise smiled. "That's really sweet."

Daniel's expression could have melted the polar ice caps. "I'm not sweet."

"That's a matter of interpretation," Josie said.

The metal-melting glare got turned on her. "When this woman's thing is over, I'll show you how sweet I

am."

"I can't wait." She gave him one of the fluttering eyelashes looks she'd perfected and puckered her lips inan air kiss."I'm not convinced Nitro is sweet," Wolf said, "but you sure as he-heck are stubborn."She wouldn't bother denying something she knew to be true, and it was a good thing in her opinion. If she were less sure of herself, these guys would walk right over her. "Did you ask my dad what he thought

of leaving me behind?""He's worse than you are about it. He figures he's trained you to be the best and there isn't anyone elsehe'd rather have covering his back." Daniel was still looking plenty irritated.

She smiled triumphantly at all of them. "Well, that's settled then."

"How do you figure that?" Daniel asked in a dangerous tone.

"It's no use trying to argue with both me and my dad, and I think you're all smart enough to realize it."

Josie pulled the black face mask down and adjusted her night-vision goggles.

They'd hiked in and established position after leaving their jeeps parked far enough away that the sound

of the running engines wouldn't carry to the compound.

"Ready?" Daniel's almost soundless voice came from right beside her ear.

She nodded once.

"Be careful."

"You, too," she said at a bare whisper.

Then he was gone.

Hotwire would cut the security system while Wolf and Daniel neutralized the guards. Her dad was supposed to neutralize the armory, and she was responsible for getting the files. She had six 256 MB jump drives in her vest pocket-enough to download the pertinent information on several hard drives. While she was getting it, the other four would be collecting the men who had taken her dad's courses.

The plan was to dump them along with the incriminating evidence on the FBI's doorstep. Hotwire had convinced her to leave the stolen laptop where it was so the authorities could come into the compound on the charge of theft. It would allow them to move faster than if they had to acc.u.mulate a case based on the doc.u.mented evidence.

Hotwire gave the signal over the headsets that security was disabled. Three minutes later, Daniel indicated his man was down, and not five seconds later, Wolf signaled the same thing.

She and her dad headed in. She didn't hear him moving, and she knew he couldn't hear her either. Unlike when she'd been a little girl, she now knew how to move silently without leaving a trail behind her in the forest.

The office was exactly where her father had said it was. Only two sleeping quarters were attached to it, and they were at the other end of the long corridor, the mess hall between them and the office. Which meant that with the security system disabled, there was almost no chance her presence in the building would be detected.

Three computers were on different desks in the big office, and one of them was her laptop. She powered each one up. While they were coming on-line she started methodically taking pictures of the files in the cabinets. The memory card on her tiny digital camera could hold over one thousand images, and she had extra memory cards in her vest along with the jump drives.

She'd be able to walk out of there with the entire file system in her pocket.

The ding of Windows finishing its start-up routine indicated at least one of the computers was on-line. She plugged a jump drive into the USB port and started downloading the doc.u.ments folder before doing a search for encrypted and hidden doc.u.ments. Using techniques Hotwire had taught her, she found a second doc.u.ments folder, this one both hidden and encrypted. She set it up to copy to the jump drive when the current application was finished and went back to taking pictures of the paper files.

Hotwire or the FBI could work on decoding it later.

"I'm headed to Position Three." Hotwire's voice came across her headset, indicating he was on his way to help her out. He must have turned his prisoner over to one of the other soldiers.

He arrived a minute later and immediately started working on a second computer. She said nothing, but dropped the remaining jump drives on the desk in front of him so he could complete the downloads.

It amazed her that groups like this one kept copies of incriminating doc.u.ments. She'd already copied a memo from one of the members of the compound to the leader detailing his suggestion for taking courses from Tyler McCall and then disposing of the older man. She tried not to read the doc.u.ments as she went, it would go faster that way, but her dad's name had leapt off the page at her.

"Daddy?" The sound of a child's voice in the corridor outside the office froze Josie's blood in her veins even as she headed for the door.

The light in the corridor came on, and Josie came to an abrupt halt at the door, tugging down her night-vision goggles so she could see. It took precious seconds for her eyes to adjust to the light.

"Abel, what are you doing up?" The woman's sleepy words came from the left of the door."I wanted to ask Daddy somethin'.""He's not here. Daddy is on sentry duty tonight.""I know. I wanted to help him."That would have been a complication they didn't need, and Josie was glad the child hadn't gone with his father on his nightly rounds. She could see the small body near the doorway to the outside at the office

end of the corridor."You're too little." The mother sounded less sleepy and a little impatient. Josie could not see her at all,but her voice came from the end of the hallway near the sleeping quarters. "Now, it's time to get back tobed, young man."